Regulating embedded analysts’ information access behavior is important to the implementation of the Regulation Fair Disclosure. In July 2012, Chinese regulators mandated Shenzhen listed firms to disclose more details about analysts’ site visits in a much timelier manner. The 2012 Regulation provides a suitable scenario to examine how disclosure regulation affects the private information access practices of embedded analysts.

Based on the data from 2009-2017 Shenzhen listed firms, we find that the 2012 Regulation did change embedded analysts’ information access behavior. Specifically, embedded analysts are less likely to attend exclusive site visits after 2012; non-embedded analysts or mutual funds who take site visits jointly with embedded analysts are more likely to benefit from site visits after 2012; and the above results are more significant when firms’ proprietary cost of disclosure is higher. These findings are robust after changing the research design and controlling for potential endogeneity issues. Furthermore, embedded analysts facilitate Q&A parts during site visits. Overall, the results confirm that the 2012 Regulation has directed embedded analysts to disseminate information in a more equitable manner.

The possible contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) It finds that the 2012 Regulation has differential impacts on site visitors with different characteristics during different types of site visits, which helps to understand the inconsistent findings of existing studies on the regulatory effect of the 2012 Regulation. (2) It finds that the information advantages of embedded analysts at least partly come from their better understanding of the information disclosed by the firm in public with the help of tacit knowledge, and proposes and verifies new scenarios and mechanisms for embedded analysts to play a spillover effect. (3) The findings may help to further understand how different participants in site visits share information.

This paper puts forward the following suggestions: (1) Regulators should unify the disclosure requirements of site visits and strengthen the disclosure norms in other stock exchanges (i.e., the Shanghai Stock Exchange). (2) Listed firms should be required to make further disclosure about visitors’ personnel (i.e., using the Hudongyi or e-Hudong platform for site visits’ appointment and visitors’ personnel information registration). (3) Listed firms should be required to use information technology to make more complete records and fuller disclosure of site visits.