Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Business Administration

Program/Concentration

Finance

Committee Director

Mohammad Najand

Committee Member

Licheng Sun

Committee Member

David Selover

Committee Member

Michael McShane

Abstract

We examine whether national short-termism, inferred from corporate language, predicts future real activity, equity returns, risk, and risk-adjusted performance. Using large-scale textual analysis of issuer-linked disclosures and earnings transcripts from the largest firms in twenty major equity markets, we construct country-quarter and annual Short-Termism Scores (STS) capturing the relative emphasis on short- versus long-horizon language.

Higher short-termism predicts lower subsequent gross fixed capital formation, lower research and development intensity, and lower multi-year equity index returns across horizons of up to sixteen quarters. In addition, higher short-termism is associated with greater future market volatility and lower Sharpe ratios, indicating a deterioration in the risk–return tradeoff. These results are robust to lagged returns and macroeconomic controls and hold at both quarterly and annual frequencies.

Mediation tests show that innovation is the primary transmission channel, while physical investment plays a secondary role. However, short-termism retains incremental predictive power, suggesting that corporate language conveys forward-looking information about long-horizon value creation not fully captured by observable macroeconomic variables.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

ISBN

9798197809391

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