The demand for public information by local and nonlocal investors: Evidence from investor-level data

Abstract

I examine the demand for public information by local and nonlocal investors. Using novel data on institutional investors' requests for financial information from the SEC, I document that investors acquire approximately 20% more financial information for their local investments. This pattern holds after controlling for investors’ 13(f) portfolio holdings. I further demonstrate that this pattern is concentrated in stocks eliciting behavioral biases as well as among investors with strong company relationships. Consistent with public information acquisition being more beneficial to local investors, I find that local investors exhibit both enhanced timeliness in acquiring public information and superior portfolio trading decisions when acquiring public information (on the order of 0.5% per quarter). In sum, these results provide evidence that investors demand more, and benefit more from, public information on local investments.