Determinants of the disclosure tone of poverty alleviation information: the case of A-share listed companies in China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchange

ABSTRACT

Companies’ disclosing information of targeted poverty alleviation in China has become a referee for investors to judge the morality of the corporate management and influenced the decision-making of investment. According to analysing the sample of A-share listed companies in China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen during 2016–2019, this article tests the effects on practices (Investment of Poverty Alleviation) via theories (Information Disclosure).

The empirical result shows that: First, once companies invest more in targeted poverty alleviation, they will significantly increase their active tone, such as active participation and high involvements, to disclose the relevant information. Second, compared with private enterprises, state-owned enterprises will have more active tones in disclosing the information on targeted poverty alleviation. Nevertheless, with the non-profit feature and its social responsibility of state-owned enterprises, results reveal the negative correlations between increasing expenditures in poverty alleviation and its information disclosure.

KEYWORDS:

• Targeted poverty alleviation
• textual analysis
• content analysis
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by ‘the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities’, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law [202011122].