@article{80b16edd277440cbbb175760003d8520,
title = "Copycat Skills and Disclosure Costs: Evidence from Peer Companies{\textquoteright} Digital Footprints",
abstract = "We examine whether firms that imitate peer companies{\textquoteright} strategies (copycats) profit from such behavior and how their success may cause competitive harm to disclosing companies. We identify copycat companies by tracking the digital footprints of investment companies that view disclosures on the SEC EDGAR Web site. We find that copycat companies are able to identify profitable trades that outperform other trades disclosed by the copycatted companies by 5.5% annually. Such stock-screening skills are related to investment sophistication and research intensity. Furthermore, copycats inflict greater damage on the performance of disclosing companies when they possess superior copycat skills, when disclosed trading strategies take longer to complete, and when disclosed stock holdings are characterized by high information asymmetry.",
author = "Cao, {Sean Shun} and Kai Du and Baozhong Yang and Zhang, {Alan L.}",
note = "Funding Information: Accepted by Christian Leuz. The authors would like to thank an anonymous reviewer, Vikas Agarwal, George Aragon (discussant), Alper Darendeli, Eric Holzman, Jingzhi Huang, Steve Huddart, Peter Iliev, Yongtae Kim, Yibin Liu (discussant), Henock Louis, Jed Neilson, Xiumin Martin (discussant), Weiling Song, Jay Wang (discussant), Biqin Xie, Frank Zhang, and seminar and conference participants at Bentley University, 2019 China International Conference in Finance, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2019 Financial Management Association Annual Meeting, Georgia State University, 2019 Georgia Tech SESARC, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Louisiana State University, 2019 Michigan State GMARS Research Symposium, 2020 Midwest Finance Association Annual Meeting, Nanyang Technological University, Pennsylvania State University, and PNC Finance Conference at the University of Kentucky for helpful comments and suggestions. The authors acknowledge financial support from their respective institutions. Alan Zhang also acknowledges support from Georgia State University where he was a PhD student when a significant part of this research was completed. An Online Appendix to this paper can be downloaded at http://research.chicagobooth.edu/arc/journal-of-accounting-research/online-supplements . Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 The Chookaszian Accounting Research Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business",
year = "2021",
month = sep,
doi = "10.1111/1475-679X.12369",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "59",
pages = "1261--1302",
journal = "Journal of Accounting Research",
issn = "0021-8456",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "4",
}