Following an exogenous regulation change in China, we examine the impact of company visit disclosures on the fairness of market information acquisition. Before July 2012, company visits to Chinese listed firms were vaguely disclosed in annual reports long after they were conducted. After that, they were disclosed in detail within two trading days of their completion. Market reactions around visits are much stronger and more predictive of firms' future earnings if visits occurred after July 2012 and, thus, were disclosed in a timelier and more detailed manner. The timely disclosure of visit details also improves the forecast accuracy of non-visiting analysts, reduces forecast dispersion among analysts, and weakens the relative information advantages of visiting analysts. Because of this, visits are more concentrated on firms with poorer information environments, larger sizes, and manufacturing firms after July 2012, i.e., firms offering visitors larger potential benefits. In summary, the timely disclosure of visit details improves the fairness of information acquisition and decreases information asymmetry while causing information chilling effects for firms that provide fewer potential benefits to visitors.

The firm‐level bullwhip effect is the amplification of demand uncertainty along a supply chain—that is, fluctuations in production (for manufacturing firms) or purchases from suppliers (for retailers or wholesalers) in a firm tend to be greater than its demand fluctuations. We predict that the bullwhip ratio (a proxy for the bullwhip effect) amplifies the relation between demand uncertainty and cost structure. We expect this amplifying effect because the bullwhip ratio determines the extent to which demand uncertainty translates into uncertainty in production or purchases, which, in turn, affects cost structure. Using data from public US firms over the 1990–2020 period, we find results consistent with our prediction. Specifically, we find that both the negative relation between demand uncertainty and cost elasticity in the manufacturing sector and the positive relation between the two in the retail/wholesale sectors are stronger for firms with higher bullwhip ratios. We contribute to the literature on cost structure by highlighting the important role of the bullwhip effect in cost structure decisions.

We develop a continuous-time asset allocation model to investigate the effects of mean-reverting stock returns on investors with Prospect Theory (PT) preferences. Our semi-analytical solution facilitates a comprehensive exploration of how the stock investment of PT investors may differ when accounting for mean reversion. We find that incorporating mean reversion attenuates the distinct V-shaped demand pattern in relation to contemporaneous prices, which is more pronounced when mean reversion is absent, by significantly reducing PT investors’ stock demand following price increases. This shift leads to a stock demand profile that demonstrates an inverse relationship with stock prices. In line with this change, we also show that combining PT utility with mean reversion predicts short-term contrarian behavior and the disposition effect more reliably than benchmark models that incorporate either PT utility or mean-reverting returns alone.