Do insiders crowd out analysts?

Both insiders and analysts are involved in the collection and dissemination of information to the market, roles which impact heavily on price efficiency and resource allocation. The differences between the two groups, however, result in a competitive relationship with analysts at a disadvantage due to greater costs associated with information gathering. As a result they may choose not to participate in this one-sided competition. We employ transaction data to examine the impact of firm-year aggregate insider trading intensity on the level of analyst following. We find a negative relationship between the prevalence of insider trading and analyst coverage lending support to the crowding out hypothesis.