Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
展示给我看！”企业年报中图像的信息含量
“Show Me!” The Informativeness of images in firms’ annual reports
摘要
We consider how images (i.e., photos but not graphs, charts, or infographics) in annual reports provide users with information and use machine-learning algorithms to assess their informativeness. We develop a metric of content reinforcement, defined as the degree to which information investors extract from images complements and reinforces details in textual narratives. We find that firms are more likely to use images when they experience greater asset growth, have greater business complexity, and provide less readable textual disclosures—suggesting images are used more often when information processing costs are high. Our main results indicate that increases in visual prevalence and the extent to which images reinforce text are associated with greater analyst forecast accuracy and lower dispersion, suggesting that images improve users’ information processing. Firms also increase image use after an exogenous decline in analyst coverage. Overall, firms use images when their information environment is poorer, and visual informativeness facilitates information assimilation.
中文摘要
我们探讨了年度报告中图像（即照片，而非图表、图形或信息图）如何向用户提供信息，并运用机器学习算法评估其信息含量。我们构建了一个内容强化指标，定义为投资者从图像中提取的信息与文本叙述中的细节相互补充并强化的程度。研究发现，当企业资产增长较快、业务复杂度较高且文本披露可读性较低时，企业更倾向于使用图像——这表明在信息处理成本较高的情况下，图像的使用更为频繁。我们的主要结果表明，视觉呈现度的提升以及图像对文本强化程度的增加，与分析师的预测准确度提高和预测离散度降低相关，从而说明图像改善了用户的信息处理能力。此外，在分析师覆盖范围出现外生性下降后，企业也会增加图像的使用。总体而言，企业在信息环境较差时更倾向于使用图像，而视觉信息有助于促进信息的吸收与整合。