[4Yin2] Interactive session 2

[4Yin2-21] Accounting Information Readability and Individual Investor Decision Making

Evidence from Online Survey Experiment

〇Yoshitaka Hirose^1,2 (1.Osaka Metropolitan University, 2.Osaka City University)

Keywords:Readability, Online survey experiment, Behavioral accounting, Computational social science, Disclosure

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the easy-to-read and easy-to-understand accounting information disclosed by firms influences the decisions of individual investors. The study employed an experimental design in which the readability (easy or difficult to read) and performance outcomes (good or poor performance) of press releases disclosed by a fictitious company were manipulated, and a total of 1,000 subjects participated in a between-subjects online survey experiment. The analysis revealed that firms with easy-to-read disclosures received higher valuations for their corporate value than firms with hard-to-read disclosures. The results for the good performance condition were consistent with the results of the previous North American study, but the results for the poor performance condition were different from the results of the previous North American study, indicating that firms with easy-to-read disclosures had higher evaluated corporate value than those with hard-to-read disclosures.