The impact of information disclosure on market liquidity: Evidence from firms' use of Twitter

Despite the popular use of social media by firms, empirical research investigating their economic values still lags. Based on the Security Exchange Commission's (SEC) new regulation on Fair Disclosure valid important corporate information discloses via social media (RIDSM), in this study, we examine the effectiveness of this new regulation to market liquidity. We collect trade data including daily volume and bid-ask spread to assemble a unique data set at individual firm level from S&P 500 firms and analyze the firms' bid-ask spread and volume before and after issuing the regulation. This natural experiment allows us to separate the effect of regulation from the effect of other confounding factors. The results from our panel data analyses indicate that bid-ask spread has decreased by about 5% in response to the new regulation. Our results are statistically significant and highly robust. We also examine the impact of the new regulation on a volume-based measure of liquidity, and find that the regulation is associated with greater volume, consistent with a reduction in information asymmetry. Moreover, this result holds mainly for firms that are high-tech, consistent with them being in greater need of this additional information disclosure channel.