| Using cross-country data on trading by international mutual funds, I find that firms with more opaque information environments, as captured by firm- and country-level measures of the availability of financial reporting information, experience more privately-informed trading by institutional investors. The association between firm-level opacity and informed trading is most pronounced where country-level disclosure infrastructures are less developed and for those investors for whom the incentives and opportunities to acquire private information are greatest. A difference-in-differences analysis of returns earned by institutions across opaque and transparent firms suggests these results are economically significant. |
