Job Market Paper
To Assuage or to Evade: Managerial Non-Answer and the Audience in the Room
Using approximately 14,000 S&P 500 earnings calls, we examine why managers answer analysts in some settings but evade them in others. I develop an LLM-based classification procedure to identify managerial non-answers and combine it with analysts' questioning and coverage histories.
FindingManagers are more likely to provide non-answers when analysts are more heterogeneous and less likely to do so when analysts are more familiar with the firm. Both relationships become stronger following negative evaluations.
