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CSR Report Readability: Does It Matter to Analyst Recommendations and Information Environment?

Le Emily Xu & Kun Yu

Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies2026https://doi.org/10.1142/s0219091526500141article
ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

This study examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) report readability affects the ability of analyst recommendations to predict future returns, as well as the analysts’ information environment. The results indicate that easy-to-read CSR disclosure improves the return predictability of analyst recommendations. Furthermore, we show that the effect of CSR report readability on analysts’ information environment is driven entirely by reducing uncertainty, not by reducing information asymmetry among analysts, and this result is more pronounced for firms with relatively low CSR performance. Additionally, we demonstrate that one possible channel through which more readable CSR reports may enhance the return predictability of analyst recommendations is by aligning these recommendations with valuation estimates from the residual income model.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1142/s0219091526500141

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{le2026,
  title        = {{CSR Report Readability: Does It Matter to Analyst Recommendations and Information Environment?}},
  author       = {Le Emily Xu & Kun Yu},
  journal      = {Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1142/s0219091526500141},
}

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CSR Report Readability: Does It Matter to Analyst Recommendations and Information Environment?

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.