Textual classification of SEC comment letters
Journal
Review of Accounting Studies
Subject
Accounting
Publishing details
Publication Year
2020
Abstract
This study examines the impact of SEC comment letters on future financial reporting outcomes and earnings credibility. Naive Bayesian classification identifies comment letters associated with future restatements and write-downs. An investor attention-based quantitative measure of importance, using EDGAR downloads, is also predictive of these outcomes. Disclosure-event abnormal returns, revenue recognition comments, and the number of letters in a conversation appear to be useful quantitative metrics for classifying importance in certain settings. This study also documents trends in comment letter topics over time, and identifies topics associated with the textual and quantitative classifications of importance, providing insights into the factors drawing investor attention and which relate to future restatements and write-downs. Innocuous comment letters are associated with improvements in earnings credibility following comment letter reviews.
Keywords
SEC comment letters; Financial reporting quality; Enforcement; Text classification; Restatements; Write-downs; Naive Bayes; Latent Dirichlet Allocation
Available on ECCH
No
