ABSTRACT Review correspondence between the SEC and firms is a potentially valuable resource for investors, revealing important information about firms' financial reporting quality. Research suggests that reducing access costs (i.e., the amount of effort required to access review correspondence) could increase investors' processing of this important information. Drawing on psychology theory, I predict and find that access costs interact with another key characteristic within the SEC's control—review ambiguity (i.e., transparency about outcomes from the SEC's review process)—to influence investors' judgments. Results show that when access costs are low, greater review ambiguity decreases investors' reliance on review correspondence information and influences investment judgments in a corresponding manner. In contrast, review ambiguity has no effect on investors' reliance or investment judgments when access costs are high. Overall, my results provide important new insights on the importance of SEC transparency during its review process, particularly as information becomes more easily accessible. JEL Classifications: C91; D81; D83; G11; M41.

ABSTRACT Recent regulatory amendments aimed at modernizing disclosures and enhancing their usefulness focus on repetition and interactivity within firms’ disclosure filings. We use two experiments to provide evidence on the effects of disclosure repetition (repeating of information in the filing) and disclosure interactivity (user involvement in directing the form or content of the information displayed) on investors’ information processing and investment judgments. Results show that repetition increases investors’ processing of repeated information, consistent with the informational role of repetition documented in prior research. In contrast, repetition reduces investors’ processing of other, nonrepeated information when the filing is less interactive. This evidence corroborates concerns that repetition can obscure value‐relevant information from investors. However, we find that more interactive disclosures mitigate this harmful effect of repetition on investors’ processing of nonrepeated information. Further, more interactive disclosures lead to deeper overall processing of both repeated and nonrepeated information, rather than more interactive disclosures redirecting investors’ attention and processing away from repeated information. Thus, our evidence suggests that disclosure interactivity is an important disclosure attribute that counteracts the potentially harmful effects of repetition on investors' processing of nonrepeated information, while preserving repetition's informational role.

ABSTRACT We use experimental markets to examine how pushing investment information and the value relevance of that information interact to influence investors’ value estimate accuracy and market price efficiency. Developments in technology allow information to be pushed to investors anytime and anywhere. However, in addition to value‐relevant information, pushed information often includes information that is irrelevant for assessing firm value. Drawing on psychology theory, we find that pushing information has divergent effects depending on the value relevance of the information. Pushing only value‐relevant information increases investors’ processing of the information and leads to more accurate value estimates and market prices than when not pushed. In contrast, pushing a mix of value‐relevant and value‐irrelevant information reduces investors’ processing of value‐relevant information, leading to less accurate value estimates and market prices due to poorer acquisition and integration of information than when not pushed or when only value‐relevant information is pushed. Collectively, our results reveal a dark side to push technologies, particularly with the growing presence of value‐irrelevant information.