This paper examines whether laws requiring oil and gas firms to disclose the chemicals used in their fracking operations affect the mortgage lending activity for properties located in nearby areas. I hypothesize and find that the disclosure mandate reduces uncertainty about the value of housing collateral and subsequently increases (1) the probability of obtaining a mortgage by 2.5 percentage points (pp), and (2) loan-to-value by 2.2 pp. My main analyses exploit the variation in the location of properties relative to fracking wells. Cross-sectional tests that exploit heterogeneity in drinking water sources and the content of firm disclosures further substantiate my inferences and mitigate endogeneity concerns. These findings suggest that disclosure regulation for oil and gas firms affects housing collateral values, thereby impacting the mortgage market.

We study whether mandatory surveys of patient experience affects patient mortality in U.S. hospitals. We exploit two settings where healthcare regulators mandated the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey: the 2003 Maryland pilot study and the 2007 nationwide adoption. Difference-indifferences analyses show increased mortality for hospitals that were subject to the mandate, relative to other comparable hospitals. We observe this effect before hospitals disclose their HCAHPS ratings, which suggests that it is attributable to measurement, rather than to disclosure. An analysis of changes in hospital expenses shows that, after the mandate, affected hospitals experienced a relative increase (decrease) in non-clinical (clinical) expenses. This finding is consistent with theories of multitasking, which predict that more incentives for one task (in this case, patient experience) cause some reallocation of resources from other tasks (clinical care).

This paper asks about the existence, determinants, and implications of toxic content in financial social media. Using machine learning algorithms to measure toxicity in Seeking Alpha articles and comments, we find measurable toxicity concentrated primarily in user-generated comments rather than articles. Comment toxicity is greater for firms with more investor attention or uncertainty. We document three key results about toxicity in capital markets. First, toxicity displays a feedback loop in platform participation: past toxicity is associated with more future toxic contributors for a given firm. Second, firms receiving more toxic comments have greater retail trading volume but less informative retail trades, especially when comments disagree. Third, toxicity is associated with slower price discovery around earnings announcements. Our findings suggest that financial social media toxicity relates to both user behavior and market outcomes and raise important considerations for platform governance in financial markets. Data Availability: The Seeking Alpha articles and comments used in this study were obtained directly from Seeking Alpha under a data-sharing arrangement and are proprietary; we are not permitted to redistribute them. These data may be requested from Seeking Alpha. Compustat, Execucomp, CRSP, and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Trade and Quote (TAQ) data are available through Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) to subscribing institutions.