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Prior studies suggest that, in an industry in which several public firms operate (i.e. greater public firm presence), uncertainty about business operations within the industry is reduced due to greater analyst coverage and quality of information disclosure. In this study, the authors examine how UK private firms respond to investment opportunities in fixed intangible assets (FIAs) in an environment characterised by greater public firm presence (PFP).

Using data from 61,278 (1,358) private (public) UK firms operating in ten sectors spanning from 2006 to 2016, the authors conduct this analysis by using panel econometric techniques.

The authors observe that private firms are more responsive to their FIA investment opportunities when they operate in industries with more PFP. Also, the authors find that firms in industries with better information quality use more debt and have longer debt maturity security but less internal cash flow. Overall, the findings indicate that PFP generates positive externalities for private firms by lessening industry uncertainty and enhancing more efficient FIA investment. The results are robust to endogeneity concerns.

A key limitation of the study is that it focuses on a single country (the UK) and therefore there is a likelihood that the results found are specific to this setting but not others, particularly developing and emerging economies. Thus, future studies could explore these ideas from the viewpoint of multiple countries.

Overall, the study demonstrates the importance of information disclosure in driving investment decisions of firms.

While this paper builds on the information disclosure and corporate investment literature, it is one of the first attempts, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to explore how private UK firms respond to investment in FIAs in an environment characterised by greater PFP.

The development of electronic information technology and its increasing rate of adoption and implementation is having a major impact upon both the volume of information activity and the levels of employment in information related jobs.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of information disclosure by unlisted bond issuers on the stock price informativeness of listed firms in the same industry.

This paper takes advantage of information disclosure during the bond issuance and examines the spillover effect of unlisted bond issuers' information disclosure on listed firms in the stock market. The sample is composed of A-share firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2007 to 2018. All the data are obtained from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research and WIND databases. The impact of bond market information disclosure on price informativeness of listed firms in the same industry is identified through multivariate regression analyses.

Empirical results show that price informativeness of listed firms has a significantly positive association with the information disclosure of same-industry unlisted bond issuers. Further analyses show that the above finding is more significant when information disclosure of bond issuers is a more important channel for acquiring industry information (i.e. when industry is more concentrated, when economic uncertainty is high, and when industry information is less transparent) and understanding the industry competitive landscape (i.e. when bond issuers are relatively large, when bond issuers and listed firms have more direct product competition, when bond issuance firms are large-scale state-owned business groups), and when there are more cross-market information intermediaries (i.e. more cross-market institutional investors and more sell-side analysts). This paper indicates that information disclosure of bond issuers has a positive spillover effect on the stock market.

The novelty of the research is that the authors examine industry information spillover from unlisted firms to listed firms leveraging on unlisted firms' information disclosure in bond markets.

The existing literature has established the importance of industry concentration in explaining firm performance and information environments. However, little is known about whether and how industry concentration affects investors’ ability to anticipate future earnings. This paper aims to investigate this query by identifying and testing two channels, product market power and intra-industry information transfer, through which industry concentration affects the informativeness of stock returns about future earnings.

The paper measures the informativeness of stock returns about future earnings by the future earnings response coefficient (FERC)). This study estimates the FERC using a firm-level sample from 38 economies.

The authors find that industry concentration significantly enhances investors’ ability to predict future earnings. Further tests show that both product market power and intra-industry information transfer contribute to explaining the positive association between industry concentration and the FERC, with the former playing a more salient role. Finally, the authors show that a country’s effective competition law attenuates the positive impact of industry concentration on the FERC by weakening the economic impact of the two underlying channels.

This study contributes to the growing literature on the price-leading-earnings relation, industry concentration and international corporate governance.

Firm growth in industry clusters is a complex issue. On the one hand, industrial clusters can promote firm growth. On the other hand, they can restrict the growth of a firm in some aspects. Their various effects have to be analyzed in detail. The purpose of this paper is to examine these effects and the law of enterprise growth in electronic information industry clusters of China.

This paper makes use of the panel data of the Chinese manufacturing industry with the intention of testing Gibrat's law. It carries out an empirical analysis on the influence of Chinese electronic information industry clusters on firm growth.

The result of the present research indicates that industry clusters definitely have a positive impact on firm growth, profit and longevity. However, in regard to the firms' data of China 2006 to 2007, the electronic information industry clusters have negative effects on scale of business growth of small and medium‐sized companies but not big companies. Moreover, the innovation of companies inside a cluster could not catch up with that of companies outside the cluster.

For the electronic information enterprises, growth rate is positively correlated with the enterprise age. Gibrat's law is tenable, that is, firm growth mainly depends on firm age. In Chinese electronic information industry clusters, R&D has only a weak influence on enterprise growth. In contrast, the economic soundness of the region where the electronic information industry clusters are located is more beneficial to the growth of enterprises in the cluster.

Results of an in‐depth study of the electronic publishing (EP) industry, with particular emphasis on the consumer marketplace, are presented. EP was defined as the use of electronic media to deliver information to users in electronic form or from electronic sources. EP is contrasted to electronic‐aided publishing, which is the use of electronic means to format and produce a conventional information product. An “information chain” model of the information flows between publishers (or producers) and users was helpful in understanding the boundaries of EP and defining its markets. Following a review of the conventional publishing industry, a model of the forces driving the EP industry was derived. Although technology is the strongest driving force, it is by no means the only one; the others are economics, demographics, social trends, government policies, applications growth, and industry trends. Each of these forces is described in detail in a “cause and effect” scenario, from which keys to success in the EP marketplace are derived. Although there is some turmoil in the industry, with new services continuing to appear and disappear, the overall picture is one of optimism. EP should be a significant part of consumers' lives by the end of the decade.

The definition of the ‘information industry’ is given. The state of the art of China's information industry is described. The problems and the opportunities for its development are analysed. And finally, considerations on its development are put out.

The Commission of the European Communities plays a dual role in the information industry due to its resemblance to and interaction with governments:

The IT industry in the UK, and thus by reduction the information content‐orientated industries which create the services and products used in the IT environment in homes, laboratories and offices, live in highly competitive times. The information industry is by definition a global industry, and increasingly the research and development of new products is seen upon a global basis. The continued development of a world communication system, with satellite links between concentrations of product and service implementation, ensures that this is the case. The major information economies of the USA and Japan strive for leadership in this environment. While not competitive in that league, the UK information economy is examined by government and industry alike to ensure that we have in the UK what it takes to establish a large indigenous information industry, creating high levels of information service employment and creating considerable export potential. Yet, while the American Information Industry Association (IIA) has recently appointed a Director of Globalisation, the UK industry remains more on the defensive than the offensive. Research and development activity has plateaued in most sectors and fallen in some, while government contributions overall are planned to fall dramatically. There was never a better time to look at the future of the information industry: research and development is the key to that future.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the sources of climate change information used and trusted by key stakeholders in the Australian property industry, their information needs and their capacity to translate that information into decision-making.

Qualitative research applying in-depth interviews with 24 key stakeholders from a diverse range of property/real estate companies in Australia.

This research identified a wide range of information types used by key stakeholders, ranging from reliance on unsophisticated mass media reporting to detailed analysis of scientific research. The capacity of stakeholders to translate this information for their organisation was polarised; 11 of the 24 interviewees indicated they had the capacity, while the other 13 indicated they did not, often owing to time horizons or lack of current interest within the organisation or from clients.

This research was limited to 24 in-depth interviews and is not intended to be a representative sample. However, this limitation is offset by the fact that a diverse range of stakeholders were interviewed and an in-depth and rich understanding has been provided about their approach to climate change.

The results can inform the development of better communication channels for climate change for the property industry by supporting science-practice collaborations in the timely and effective dissemination of research. This is important to understand given the identified need to bridge the gap among research, policy and practice.

Climate change poses significant challenges and risks for built environments. The property industry, as a key stakeholder, has great potential to influence current practices. The results reported here assist in addressing these challenges.

At present, limited research globally has been conducted about climate change actions in the property industry. This research responds to this gap.