ABSTRACTThe Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows firms to redact information from material contracts by submitting confidential treatment requests if redacted information is not material and would cause competitive harm upon public disclosure. This study examines whether managers use confidential treatment requests to conceal bad news. We show that confidential treatment requests are positively associated with residual short interest, a proxy for managers' private negative information. This positive association is more pronounced for firms with lower litigation risk, higher executive equity incentives, and lower external monitoring. Confidential treatment requests filed by firms with higher residual short interests are associated with higher stock price crash risk and poorer future performance. Collectively, our results suggest that managers redact information from material contracts to conceal bad news.Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study.

中文翻译：

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公司是否会编辑重大合同中的信息来隐瞒坏消息？


摘要如果编辑的信息不重要且公开披露后会造成竞争损害，美国证券交易委员会 (SEC) 允许公司通过提交机密处理请求来编辑重大合同中的信息。这项研究调查了管理者是否使用机密治疗请求来隐瞒坏消息。我们表明，保密处理请求与剩余空头利息呈正相关，剩余空头利息是管理者私人负面信息的代理。对于诉讼风险较低、高管股权激励较高和外部监管较低的公司来说，这种正相关关系更为明显。剩余空头权益较高的公司提出的保密处理请求与较高的股价崩盘风险和较差的未来业绩相关。总的来说，我们的结果表明，管理者会编辑重大合同中的信息以掩盖坏消息。 数据可用性：本研究中使用的数据可从研究中确定的公共来源获得。