Investor attention and corporate financialization: Evidence from internet search volume

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between investor attention and corporate financialization from a behavioral finance perspective. We use Internet search volume as a proxy for investor attention and find that investor attention is significantly and positively related to corporate financialization using a sample of listed firms in China over the period 2011–2022, and that this relationship is more pronounced in firms with higher levels of managerial myopia. A series of robustness tests still support our baseline findings, such as considering endogeneity issues, substituting core variables, and changing the model setting. We further discuss the mechanism of influence using two-stage regressions and find that investor attention promotes corporate financialization by increasing investor sentiment as well as heterogeneous beliefs. Finally, we perform a series of heterogeneity tests and find that the positive relationship between investor attention and corporate financialization is more pronounced among firms with higher information uncertainty, small firms, firms within monopolistic industries, and firms within high-tech industries. However, the relationship is not significantly different among firms with different levels of institutional ownership. This study provides new evidence for understanding investors' behavioral biases and how investor attention affects corporate investment strategies.