Three Essays On The Informativeness Of Investment Company Disclosure PDF Download

This dissertation consists of three essays on the strategic qualitative disclosure decisions of hedge funds and mutual funds. The dissertation research seeks to contribute to a new understanding of the relationship between the content of fund filings and behavioral tendencies of fund stakeholders including management and investors. In the first essay, I evaluate the use of strategic disclosure by hedge fund management in order to conceal reporting inconsistencies. I inspect fund returns using a series of nine performance tests and identify a significant number of hedge funds with irregular return patterns. Using text-based analysis, I assess the qualitative content of strategy statements and find funds with suspicious performance produce distinct disclosure in regards to word choice. I conclude that these funds attempt to reduce detection by designing strategy descriptions that deviate from industry peers. My results come in contrast to prior evidence on herding tendencies and persist using alternative variable definitions and model specifications. The second essay investigates the impact of hedge fund strategic qualitative disclosure choices on fund investment. Specifically, I examine fund strategy descriptions using text-based analysis and study the relationship between the measures and hedge fund flows. In both the univariate and multivariate settings, I find strong evidence that the textual composition of fund filings can contribute to a fund's ability to attract investors. Overall, this essay finds support for the assertion that disclosure content influences investor decision-making. The findings are robust to alternative variable definitions and model specifications. In the third essay, I examine the effects of mutual fund filing composition on the ability of funds to attract investors. Using a large sample of U.S., open-ended mutual funds, I compute textual similarity and readability measures of the Investment Objective-Strategy and Principal Risk sections and examine the relationship with mutual fund flows. In the univariate setting, readability and similarity are drivers of mutual fund flows. After the inclusion of common fund flow controls and alternative model specifications, the explanatory power of the textual measures is partially reduced. Overall, I find mixed evidence that mutual fund investors use disclosure as a means to make investment decisions.