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High-prestige skeptics and the informational salience of conference call interactions
Dissertation   Open access

High-prestige skeptics and the informational salience of conference call interactions

Yun-Sheng Li
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Drexel University
Jun 2026
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/00011495
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Abstract

Credibility capital Earnings conference calls Managerial gatekeeping Sell-side analysts
I investigate the equilibrium between managerial gatekeeping and analyst strategic behavior by examining the informativeness of analyst-manager interactions during earnings conference calls. Utilizing a comprehensive sample of 3,544,251 analyst-firm-quarter observations spanning from 2006 to 2020, I document the informational life cycle of elite sell-side intermediaries. Specifically, I identify the conditions under which these financial analysts leverage their credibility assets--a multi-dimensional structural characteristic comprising institutional status and local forecasting accuracy--to achieve informational salience. Using natural language processing (NLP) on conference call transcripts, I find that capital market participants grant significant analytical authority to high-prestige skeptics who maintain a longitudinal commitment to unfiltered reporting. Crucially, I document that the participation of these branded elite intermediaries yields an economically significant 27.88% price discovery contribution (absolute value of cumulative abnormal returns) over the days following the call and effectively mitigates post-call information asymmetry. Furthermore, I provide evidence of career validation for these intermediaries, demonstrating that their credibility endowments function as a structural shield that mitigates corporate retaliation.

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