A new take on voice the influence of BlackRock's 'Dear CEO' letters - 【彩云小译】

Review of Accounting Studies (2021) 26:1088–1136
会计研究综述(2021)26:1088-1136
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-021-09603-x
Https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-021-09603-x
A new take on voice: the influence of

BlackRock’s ‘Dear CEO’ letters
一种新的声音: 贝莱德“亲爱的首席执行官”信
件的影响
Andrea Pawliczek1 & A. Nicole Skinner2 & Laura A. Wellman3

安德烈 ·波利切克 1 & a 妮可 ·斯金纳 2 劳拉 ·a ·威尔曼 3
Accepted: 3 May 2021/ Published online: 27 August 2021

接纳日期: 2021 年 5 月 3 日/网上发布日期: 2021 年 8 月 27 日
# The Author(s) 2021
作者: 2021
Abstract
摘要
We examine whether broad-based public engagement by institutional investors influ-
ences the behavior of portfolio firms. We investigate this question in the context of
BlackRock’s annual Dear CEO letter, which in recent years has called for portfolio
firms to acknowledge and quantify the impact of environmental and regulatory factors
on their firms. We find that portfolio firms’ disclosures during the post-letter period
reflect topics similar to those discussed in the letters, controlling for a variety of firm
and disclosure characteristics and the occurrence of private engagements. Moreover,
BlackRock appears to value these additional disclosures, as it more often votes with
management on shareholder proposals during subsequent annual shareholder meetings.
Finally, motivated by BlackRock’s attempts to mobilize firms toward its specific policy
recommendations, we also provide some evidence that firms’ lobbying efforts during the
post-letter period become more aligned with the issues highlighted in the letter,
especially when firms’ share BlackRock’s policy preferences ex ante. Taken together,
our evidence suggests that portfolio firms are responsive to BlackRock’s public
engagement efforts.
我们研究了机构投资者广泛的公众参与是否会影响投资组合公司的行为。我们在
贝莱德年度 CEO 致信的背景下调查了这个问题，该信近年来呼吁投资组合公司
承认并量化环境和监管因素对其公司的影响。我们发现，投资组合公司在信后期
间的信息披露反映了与信中讨论的相似的主题，控制了各种公司和信息披露特征
以及私人契约的发生。此外，贝莱德似乎重视这些额外的披露，因为在随后的年
度股东大会上，它更经常与管理层一起投票表决股东提案。最后，在贝莱德试图
动员企业参与其具体政策建议的推动下，我们还提供了一些证据，表明企业在信
后期间的游说努力与信中强调的问题更加一致，特别是当企业事先分享贝莱德的
政策偏好时。综上所述，我们的证据表明，投资组合公司对贝莱德的公众参与努
力作出了反应。
. .
Keywords Institutional ownership Shareholder engagement Shareholder
. . .
voice Disclosure ESG Lobbying
机构所有权，股东参与，股东声音，披露，游说
. .
JEL classification G32 G34 M41
JEL 分类 G32. G34. M41
We thank two anonymous referees, Badryah Alhusaini, Mary Ellen Carter, Ted Christensen, Michelle
Edkins (Managing Director, BlackRock Investment Stewardship), Yonca Ertimur, Cristi Gleason, Brian
Miller, Richard Sloan (editor), Andrew Stephan, Beverly Walther, Chris Zhao, and participants at the
University of Georgia, University of Iowa, and Corporate Governance and Executive Compensation
Research Series for their useful comments and suggestions.
我们感谢两位匿名裁判: 巴德里亚•阿尔胡塞尼(Badryah Alhusaini)、玛丽•埃伦•卡特(Mary Ellen
Carter)、泰德•克里斯坦森(Ted Christensen)、米歇尔•埃德金斯(Michelle Edkins)(贝莱德投资管理
公司董事总经理)、扬卡•埃蒂默(Yonca Ertimur)、克里斯蒂•格里森(Cristi Gleason)、布莱恩•米勒
(Brian Miller)、理查德•斯隆(Richard Sloan)、安德鲁•斯蒂芬(Andrew Stephan)、贝弗利•沃尔特
(Beverly Walther)、克里斯•赵(Chris Zhao) ，以及乔治亚大学(University of Georgia)、衣阿华大学
(University of iowa) 、企业治理和高管薪酬研究系列 (Corporate Governance and Executive
Compensation Research Series)的参与者,。
* Laura A. Wellman
law613@psu.edu
劳拉 ·a ·威尔曼
law613@psu.edu
Extended author information available on the last page of the article

扩展了文章最后一页的作者信息
A new take on voice: the influence of BlackRock’s ‘Dear
CEO’ letters
一种新的声音: 贝莱德“亲爱的首席执行官”信件的影响 1089
1 Introduction
1 引言
Institutional owners have strong incentives to monitor and engage with portfolio firms
to strengthen firms’ performance and corporate governance (Appel et al. 2016; Bebchuk
et al. 2017). Historically, institutional owners have communicated recom-mendations to
specific firms through private engagement (McCahery et al. 2016) or targeted public
actions such as activist campaigns (e.g., Brav et al. 2010). However, for large
institutional owners with diverse holdings, relying solely on firm-specific engage-ments
to influence portfolio firms can be cost prohibitive. As an alternative, legal scholars
point to broad-based public engagement as a mechanism for seeking reforms across
many firms, which can complement or substitute for more costly private interactions
(Fisch et al. 2019). Specifically, large institutions with substantial influence may
leverage their platforms to push portfolio firms toward favored strategies, and firms may
benefit from responding if they can avoid disciplinary actions (e.g., adverse voting and
exit).1 However, we lack evidence of whether broad-based public engage-ment is
effective at influencing firm behavior.
机构所有者有强烈的动机监测和参与投资组合公司，以加强公司业绩和公司治理
(Appel 等，2016; Bebchuk 等，2017)。从历史上看，机构所有者通过私人参与
(McCahery 等，2016 年)或有针对性的公共行动，如活动家运动(如 Brav 等，2010
年) ，将建议传达给特定的公司。然而，对于拥有不同控股权的大型机构所有者
来说，仅仅依靠公司特定的参与来影响投资组合公司可能成本过高。作为另一种
选择，法律学者指出，基础广泛的公众参与是许多公司寻求改革的一种机制，可
以补充或替代成本更高的私人互动(Fisch et al。具体而言，具有重大影响力的大型
机构可能会利用其平台，推动投资组合公司采取有利的策略，如果公司能够避免
纪律处分(例如，逆向投票和退出) ，它们可能会从中受益。然而，我们缺乏证据
证明广泛的公众参与是否有效地影响公司行为。
We investigate this question in the context of BlackRock’s annual Dear CEO letter,
which is addressed to the CEOs of BlackRock’s portfolio firms and published on
BlackRock’s website. Beginning in 2012, the letters initially focused on the importance
of corporate governance and long-term firm value creation. More recently, the letters
have expanded to include recommendations pertaining to environmental and social
issues, such as climate change and workforce disparities. In the letters, BlackRock CEO
Larry Fink explicitly urges portfolio firms to acknowledge and quantify the impact of
environmental and social risks and opportunities through public disclosure. In addition,
he encourages firms to detail, in their disclosures, any strategic actions taken or planned
in response to the evolving environmental and regulatory landscape.
我们在贝莱德年度 CEO 致信的背景下调查了这个问题。这封信是写给贝莱德
投资组合公司的首席执行官们的，并发布在贝莱德的网站上。从 2012 年开始，这
些信件最初关注的是公司治理和长期公司价值创造的重要性。最近，这些信件已
经扩展到包括有关环境和社会问题的建议，如气候变化和劳动力不平等。在信中，
贝莱德首席执行官拉里 ·芬克(Larry Fink)明确敦促投资组合公司通过公开披露，
承认并量化环境和社会风险及机遇的影响。此外，他还鼓励公司在披露中详细说
明为应对不断变化的环境和监管环境而采取或计划采取的任何战略行动。
The recent emphasis on environmental and social issues provides a unique
oppor-tunity to study whether portfolio firms respond to broad-based public
engagement, particularly because BlackRock’s recommendations diverge from the
preferences of other large institutional investors.2 Firms may not react to these
letters because of this divergence or for other reasons, including proprietary costs
and direct implementation costs (such as the costs of providing disclosure or of
taking the actions described in the disclosure). Motivated by the recent shift in the
tenor of the letters, we ask three related research questions: Do firms respond to
BlackRock’s broad-based public engagement by altering their public disclosures? If
so, does BlackRock value these additional disclosures? Finally, do firms take
actions, beyond changes in disclosure, to align themselves with BlackRock’s
recommendations? Specifically, because BlackRock also uses the letters as a
platform for public advocacy, we investigate the extent to which portfolio firms’
public advocacy (i.e., lobbying) is influenced by the content of the letters.
最近对环境和社会问题的强调为研究投资组合公司是否对基础广泛的公众
参与作出反应提供了一个独特的机会，特别是因为贝莱德的建议与其他大型
机构投资者的偏好不同。由于最近这些信件的基调发生了变化，我们提出了
三个相关的研究问题: 公司是否通过改变其公开披露来回应贝莱德广泛的公众
参与？如果是这样，贝莱德是否重视这些额外的信息披露？最后，除了披露
方面的改变之外，公司是否还会采取行动，与贝莱德的建议保持一致？具体
来说，由于贝莱德也使用这些信件作为公共宣传的平台，我们调查了投资组
合公司的公共宣传(即游说)在多大程度上受到信件内容的影响。
1
BlackRock is one of the Big Three investors along with Vanguard and State Street. As of December 2019,
BlackRock had over $7 trillion in assets under management with approximately 65% in passive investments.
贝莱德(BlackRock)是三大投资者之一，先锋(Vanguard)和道富(State Street)也是其中之一。截至 2019 年
12 月，贝莱德管理的资产超过 7 万亿美元，其中约 65% 为被动投资。
2 For example, in its letter to board members in 2019, State Street explicitly states that it does not
approach investing decisions with a political or social agenda (State Street 2019). The letters have also
received mixed responses in media coverage: an article by Jim Cramer of CNBC praised Fink’s 2020
letter for showing what true leadership looks like (Cramer 2020), but a Barron’s article titled Did
BlackRock’s Larry Fink Go Too Far? was more skeptical of the 2018 letter’s contents (Racanelli 2018).
例如，在 2019 年写给董事会成员的信中，道富银行明确表示，它不会带着政治或社会议程来处
理投资决策(道富银行，2019 年)。这些信件在媒体报道中也得到了不同的回应: CNBC 的吉姆•克
莱默(Jim Cramer)在一篇文章中称赞芬克 2020 年的信件展示了真正的领导力是什么样子(克莱默
2020 年) ，但巴伦(Barron)的一篇题为《贝莱德(BlackRock)的拉里•芬克是否做得太过了？对 2018
年这封信的内容持怀疑态度(Racanelli 2018)。
1090 A. Pawliczek et al.
A. Pawliczek et al.
We begin by studying the relation between changes in firms’ public disclosures

around the letter release date and the magnitude of BlackRock’s ownership stake in
the firm. BlackRock’s call for increased public disclosure is consistent with large
institu-tions demanding public disclosure to minimize the cost of monitoring (Bird
and Karolyi 2016; Boone and White 2015; Bushee and Noe 2000; Jung 2013). In
addition, as a money manager, BlackRock has incentives to attract additional
investors to its funds. Portfolio firms’ public disclosures can facilitate this process if
they reveal an alignment with BlackRock’s preferred strategies. To investigate
whether firms respond to BlackRock’s letters, we study how firms alter their 8-K
disclosures within a narrow window around the letter release date, which reduces
the influence of confounding events (e.g., trends in public sentiment). Moreover,
we focus on 8-K disclosures because firms have flexibility as to the content of these
disclosures and issue 8-Ks frequently throughout the year. If portfolio firms
respond to BlackRock through disclosure, then we expect an increase in the
discussion of letter-related topics in firms’ 8-Ks subsequent to the letters.
我们从研究公司在信件发布日期前后公开信息披露的变化与贝莱德在公司
所持股份的大小之间的关系开始。贝莱德呼吁增加公开披露，与要求公开披
露以尽量减少监控成本的大型机构一致(Bird and Karolyi 2016; Boone and
White 2015; Bushee and Noe 2000; Jung 2013)。此外，作为一个基金经理，贝
莱德有吸引更多投资者到其基金的动机。投资组合公司的公开披露可以促进
这一过程，如果他们揭示了与贝莱德首选策略的一致性。为了调查公司是否
对贝莱德的信件作出反应，我们研究了公司如何在信件发布日期前后的一个
狭窄窗口内改变其 8-k 披露，从而减少混淆事件(例如，公众情绪的趋势)的影
响。此外，我们重点关注 8-k 披露，因为公司对这些披露的内容有灵活性，
并且全年频繁发布 8-k。如果投资组合公司通过披露对贝莱德做出回应，那么
我们预计在这些信件发出后，公司的 8-k 中有关信件相关话题的讨论会增加。
We use a cosine similarity score to capture the similarity between the text contained
in the BlackRock letter and the text in firms’ 8-K disclosures.3 Our measure of
disclosure similarity is flexible across periods, allowing us to measure firms’ disclosure
response more precisely as the topics of interest to BlackRock change over time. Thus,
our measure of disclosure similarity is intended to capture discussions related not only
to corporate governance and long-term value creation but also to environmental and
social issues. To validate that our disclosure similarity measure reflects (in part) firms’
discussion of environmental and social issues in their 8-Ks, we identify policy topics
covered in the letters, create a dictionary of terms used to discuss each topic, and search
for those terms in firms’ 8-Ks. We then compare the frequency of policy-related terms in
the 8-Ks of firm-years with high levels of disclosure similarity and the 8-Ks of firm-
years with relatively low levels of disclosure similarity. We find that the high-
disclosure-similarity firms include relatively more discussion of key policy topics in
their subsequent 8-K disclosures.
我们使用一个余弦距离得分来捕捉贝莱德信中所包含的文本和公司 8-k 披露中
的文本之间的相似性。3 我们对披露相似性的度量在不同时期是灵活的，使我们
能够更精确地衡量公司的披露反应，因为贝莱德感兴趣的话题会随着时间的推移
而改变。因此，我们对披露相似性的衡量旨在捕捉不仅与公司治理和长期价值创
造有关的讨论，而且还与环境和社会问题有关的讨论。为了验证我们的信息披露
相似性度量反映了(部分)企业在其 8-k 中对环境和社会问题的讨论，我们确定了
信件中涉及的政策主题，创建了一个用于讨论每个主题的术语字典，并在企业的
8-k 中搜索这些术语。然后我们比较了信息披露相似度较高的公司年的 8-k 和信息
披露相似度较低的公司年的 8-k 的政策相关术语出现频率。我们发现，高披露相
似性公司在随后的 8-k 披露中包含了相对更多的关键政策主题的讨论。
We rely on two measures to identify firms with significant BlackRock ownership.
Our first measure draws from prior research suggesting that firms are more likely to
respond to investors with a blockholding interest in the firm (Edmans 2014). Thus, we
identify whether BlackRock is a blockholder that owns at least 5% of the firm’s
outstanding shares. While this indicator variable is useful for interpreting economic
magnitudes, it does not consider the degree of BlackRock ownership beyond the 5%
level. Our second measure, which is based on BlackRock’s holding interest in the firm,
captures more variation in ownership across firms.
我们依靠两种方法来识别拥有大量贝莱德股权的公司。我们的第一个衡量标准
来自先前的研究，这些研究表明公司更有可能对持有该公司股权的投资者做出反
应(Edmans 2014)。因此，我们确定贝莱德是否是一个持有至少 5% 公司流通股的
大股东。虽然这个指标变量对于解释经济规模很有用，但是它没有考虑贝莱德超
过 5% 的持股比例。我们的第二个衡量标准是基于贝莱德在公司中的持股比例，
反映了不同公司的所有权差异。
Using these measures and a sample of 7,900 firm-years for 3,550 unique firms, we
find that 8-Ks filed 30 days after the letter by firms with significant BlackRock
ownership exhibit relatively more similar language (to that contained in the BlackRock
letter), relative to firms with less BlackRock ownership. In terms of economic magni-
tude, BlackRock block-held firms experience a 22% more positive change in disclosure
使用这些措施和 3550 家独立公司的 7900 个公司年的样本，我们发现，与拥有
较少贝莱德股权的公司相比，拥有大量贝莱德股权的公司在信件发出 30 天后提交
的 8-k 文件表现出了相对更相似的语言(与贝莱德信件中所包含的语言相似)。就
经济规模而言，贝莱德集团控股的公司在信息披露方面经历了 22% 以上的积极变
化
3 Cosine similarity scores are commonly used in natural language processing, as well as accounting and
finance research, to calculate similarity of any two texts (Loughran and McDonald 2016). Specifically,
the texts are converted to vectors of word counts. The cosine of the angle between the two vectors ranges
between zero and one and is increasing in the similarity of the documents. See Appendix 3 for further
detail and a simple example.
余弦距离是自然语言处理以及会计和金融研究中常用的计算任意两篇文章相似度的方法
(Loughran 和 McDonald，2016)。具体来说，文本被转换为字数向量。两个向量之间夹角的余弦
在 0 到 1 之间，并且文档的相似度在增加。更多细节和一个简单的例子见附录 3。
CEO’ letters
similarity, compared to firms of which BlackRock is not a blockholder. This result

is robust to controlling for firm characteristics that influence disclosure decisions,
includ-ing firms’ general propensity to discuss topics included in the letter (i.e., the
similarity of firms’ pre-period 8-Ks to the BlackRock letters), 8-K attributes, and
both time and industry fixed effects. Moreover, because BlackRock may advocate
for policies that are of general interest to other institutional investors, we include
additional controls for Vanguard ownership and State Street ownership (i.e., the
two other members of the Big Three), as well as the number of blockholders and
the overall level of institutional ownership. Interestingly, we do not find a
significant association between either Vanguard or State Street ownership and our
measure of disclosure similarity. This is consistent with the notion that the observed
changes in disclosure are linked specifi-cally to BlackRock ownership.
与贝莱德不是大股东的公司相比。这个结果对于控制影响披露决策的公司特
征是有效的，包括公司讨论信函中所包含话题的一般倾向(即公司前期的 8-k
与贝莱德信函的相似性) ，8-K 属性，以及时间和行业固定效应。此外，由于
贝莱德可能会倡导其他机构投资者普遍感兴趣的政策，我们对 Vanguard 和道
富银行(State Street)的所有权(即三大行的另外两家成员)以及大股东数量和机
构所有权的总体水平进行了额外控制。有趣的是，我们没有发现先锋或道富
银行的所有权与我们的披露相似性指标之间存在显著的关联。这与观察到的
信息披露变化与贝莱德所有权具体相关的概念是一致的。
Overall, our evidence is consistent with firms altering their disclosures in response to
BlackRock’s broad-based public engagement. However, it is possible that firms’
tendency to pursue and discuss their public policy objectives through disclosure may
coincide with the BlackRock letters as a result of ongoing private engagement with
BlackRock. That is, if BlackRock is engaging privately with firms on the same issues
conveyed in the letters, it is possible that firms’ disclosures are responding to private
engagement, to broad-based public engagement (i.e., the letters), or to both. To
investigate this possibility, we construct a novel dataset of private-engagement firms
from BlackRock’s Stewardship Annual Report. Using this data, we control for occur-
rences of private engagement between BlackRock and portfolio firms, and continue to
find that the change in portfolio firms’ disclosure around the letter release date is more
similar to the language contained in the letter. To further isolate the impact of public
engagement, we exclude the private-engagement firms from our sample and continue to
find significant changes in disclosure similarity. Thus, the observed changes in disclo-
sure similarity around the letter release date do not appear to result from private
engagement between BlackRock and portfolio firms.
总体而言，我们的证据与公司为了应对贝莱德广泛的公众参与而改变披露的做
法是一致的。然而，公司通过披露追求和讨论其公共政策目标的倾向，可能与贝
莱德发出的信件一致，因为私人部门正在与贝莱德进行接触。也就是说，如果贝
莱德就信中所传达的相同问题与公司进行私下接触，那么公司披露的信息可能是
对私下接触、广泛的公众接触(即信件)或两者兼而有之的回应。为了研究这种可
能性，我们从 BlackRock 的 Stewardship 年度报告中构建了一个新颖的私人参与公
司数据集。利用这些数据，我们控制了贝莱德与投资组合公司之间私人参与的发
生次数，并继续发现，投资组合公司在信件发布日期前后披露的变化与信件中所
包含的语言更为相似。为了进一步隔离公众参与的影响，我们从样本中排除了私
人参与公司，并继续发现信息披露相似性的重大变化。因此，观察到的信件发布
日期前后披露确定相似性的变化，似乎并不是贝莱德和投资组合公司之间私人参
与的结果。
Although studying the change in firms’ 8-K disclosures within a short window
around the release of the letters is useful for isolating the impact of the letters from that
of other events, we also analyze firms’ subsequent 10-K Management Discussion and
Analysis (MD&A) and risk factor disclosures. Specifically, we investigate the change in
MD&A and risk factor disclosures conditional on BlackRock ownership and observe
similar changes in disclosure similarity for portfolio firms following the release of the
letter. Analyzing these additional disclosures provides a better understanding of the
impact that BlackRock’s public engagement has on firms’ overall disclosure choices.
尽管在信件发布前后的短时间内研究企业 8-k 披露的变化有助于将信件的影响
与其他事件的影响分离开来，但我们也分析了企业随后的 10-k 管理讨论与分析
(md & a)和风险因素披露。具体来说，我们调查了以贝莱德所有权为条件的 md &
a 和风险因素披露的变化，并观察了信件发布后投资组合公司披露相似性的类似
变化。通过分析这些额外的信息披露，我们可以更好地理解贝莱德的公众参与对
公司整体信息披露选择的影响。
Because the composition of BlackRock’s portfolio is not random, another
concern is that our results are an artifact of self-selection (i.e., BlackRock may
choose to invest in firms that are already aligned with the preferences expressed in
the letter). Studying changes in disclosure that take place immediately after the
letter helps to mitigate this concern. We mitigate further by exploiting BlackRock’s
index holdings. Because BlackRock offers many index funds to its clients, it must
own firms that are part of common indices (e.g., S&P 500). If observed changes in
disclosure similarity occur because BlackRock selects specific portfolio firms, then
we expect the disclosure response to be less pronounced among the Blackrock
portfolio firms that are not individually selected (i.e., the index firms). We do not
find any evidence consistent with this prediction.
由于贝莱德投资组合的构成不是随机的，另一个担忧是，我们的结果是自
我选择的产物(即，贝莱德可能选择投资那些已经与信中表达的偏好一致的公
司)。研究信函发出后立即发生的信息披露变化有助于缓解这种担忧。我们通
过利用贝莱德的指数控股来进一步缓解问题。因为贝莱德为其客户提供了许
多指数基金，它必须拥有属于普通指数的公司(如标准普尔 500 指数)。如果观
察到的信息披露相似性的变化是因为贝莱德选择了特定的投资组合公司，那
么我们预计，在没有单独选择的贝莱德投资组合公司(即指数公司)中，信息披
露的反应不会那么明显。我们没有发现任何与这一预测相一致的证据。
1092 a. Pawliczek et A..
For our second research question, we investigate whether BlackRock values the
change in portfolio firms’ disclosures following the release of the letter. A potential
drawback of our disclosure measure is that it does not distinguish between a range
of possible responses. For example, we may observe an increase in disclosure
similarity in the post-letter period if firms quantify the impact of climate risk or
regulatory changes or elaborate on their plans to promote and/or implement
BlackRock-favored strategies. However, changes in disclosure may reveal
opposition to BlackRock or may not be particularly informative. Thus, we
investigate whether BlackRock values these addi-tional disclosures by analyzing its
voting behavior during firms’ subsequent annual shareholder meetings.
对于我们的第二个研究问题，我们调查贝莱德是否重视信件发布后投资组
合公司信息披露的变化。我们的信息披露措施的一个潜在缺陷是它没有区分
一系列可能的回应。例如，如果公司对气候风险或监管变化的影响进行量化，
或详细说明它们推广和/或实施贝莱德青睐的策略的计划，我们可能会发现，
在信函发出后的时期，披露相似性有所增加。然而，信息披露的变化可能反
映出对贝莱德的反对，或者可能不是特别有用。因此，我们通过分析公司在
随后的年度股东大会上的投票行为来调查贝莱德是否重视这些额外的披露。
Prior research indicates that investors may discipline portfolio firms that are not
responsive to engagement efforts by voting against management’s recommendations on
proposals during shareholder meetings (Appel et al. 2016). Consistent with this
evidence, Fink explicitly asks portfolio firms to discuss how environmental, social, and
governance factors will impact performance, and states that BlackRock will not hesitate
to exercise (its) right to vote (BlackRock 2017).4 Thus, if firms’ disclosures are valuable
to BlackRock, then we expect firms’ disclosure response to influence BlackRock’s
voting behavior. Moreover, if firms’ disclosures indicate that the firms are aligned with
BlackRock’s preferred strategies, then we expect BlackRock to reward portfolio firms
with more favorable voting outcomes. To investigate this possibility, we collect data on
all shareholder proposals from ISS Voting Analytics. We find that BlackRock is less
likely to vote in opposition to management’s recommendation when firms’ disclosures
become more similar to the BlackRock letter. This result extends to the subset of
proposals related to environmental and social issues. Collectively, these results suggest
that the change in portfolio firms’ disclosures is informative to BlackRock, and that
portfolio firms’ disclosures do not express opposition to BlackRock’s policy
recommendations on average.5 Moreover, this evidence is consis-tent with changes in
disclosure reflecting an acknowledgement of the issues and/or a discussion of actions
that firms have taken or plan to take in response to the letters.
先前的研究表明，投资者可能会在股东大会上投票反对管理层关于提案的建议，
从而惩戒那些对参与努力没有反应的投资组合公司(Appel 等，2016 年)。与这一
证据一致，Fink 明确要求投资组合公司讨论环境、社会和治理因素将如何影响业
绩，并声明贝莱德将毫不犹豫地行使投票权(BlackRock 2017)。因此，如果公司的
披露对贝莱德有价值，那么我们预计公司的披露反应将影响贝莱德的投票行为。
此外，如果公司的披露表明，这些公司与贝莱德的首选策略是一致的，那么我们
预计贝莱德将以更有利的投票结果奖励投资组合公司。为了调查这种可能性，我
们从 ISS Voting Analytics 收集所有股东建议的数据。我们发现，当公司的披露变
得更像贝莱德的信时，贝莱德不太可能投票反对管理层的建议。这一结果延伸到
了与环境和社会问题相关的提案的子集。总的来说，这些结果表明，投资组合公
司披露的变化对贝莱德有益，而且平均而言，投资组合公司的披露并不表示反对
贝莱德的政策建议。此外，这一证据与披露的变化一致，反映了对问题的承认和/
或对公司已经或计划针对这些信件采取的行动的讨论。
To investigate whether firms respond to the letters by taking actions that go beyond
changes in disclosure, we focus on an action that is particularly relevant in light of the
recent letters’ content and also observable across a broad set of firms. Specifically, one
apparent objective of the recent Dear CEO letters is to mobilize firms to advocate for
public policies such as environmental regulation, comprehensive tax reform, and
investments in infrastructure. Thus, we investigate whether BlackRock-owned firms
为了调查公司是否通过采取超越披露变更的行动来回应这些信件，我们将重点
放在一个与最近的信件内容特别相关的行动上，这一行动也可以在广泛的公司中
观察到。具体而言，最近“尊敬的 CEO”信件的一个明显目标是动员企业倡导公共
政策，如环境监管、全面税收改革和基础设施投资。因此，我们调查贝莱德是否
拥有公司
4 Consistent with firms’ disclosures representing an important input into BlackRock’s voting decisions,
BlackRock’s Stewardship Guidelines related to environmental and social issues state, We will use these
disclosures and our engagements to ascertain whether companies are properly managing and overseeing these
risks within their business and adequately planning for the future. In the absence of robust disclosures, investors,
including BlackRock, will increasingly conclude that companies are not adequately managing risk. See
BlackRock’s Investment Stewardship guidelines: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1051004/
000119312520262143/d847437dex99globalcorpgo.htm.
根据贝莱德有关环境和社会问题的管理准则，我们将利用这些披露和我们的约定，以确定公司是否在
其业务范围内妥善管理和监督这些风险，并对未来进行充分规划。在缺乏强有力的信息披露的情况下，
包括贝莱德在内的投资者将越来越多地得出结论，认为公司没有充分管理风险。参见 BlackRock 的投
资管理指南 : https://www.sec.
gov/archives/edgar/data/1051004/000119312520262143/d847437dex99globalcorpgo.htm。
5 An alternative disciplinary action that BlackRock can pursue is to exit its position. However,
BlackRock is likely to exercise its voice through voting before it decides to exit its position. Moreover,
BlackRock is primarily a passive investor and thus does not have a feasible exit option. Finally,
BlackRock’s ownership in a firm will vary from quarter to quarter, but a significant portion of that
variation is related to other transactions (e.g., rebalancing) rather than strategic exit decisions. We do not
observe significant variation in ownership conditional on firms’ disclosure response (untabulated).
贝莱德可以采取的另一种纪律行动是退出其职位。然而，贝莱德可能会在决定退出之前通过投票
发出自己的声音。此外，贝莱德主要是一个被动投资者，因此没有可行的退出选择。最后，贝莱
德在一家公司的所有权会因季度而异，但这种差异的很大一部分与其它交易(如再平衡)有关，而
不是与战略退出决策有关。我们没有观察到以公司披露反应为条件的所有权的显著变化(未列表)。
CEO’ letters
are more likely to alter their public policy efforts (i.e., lobbying) during the post-letter
period. For this analysis, we rely on LobbyView, a comprehensive dataset that collects
and analyzes firms’ mandatory lobbying disclosures, providing details on the specific
bills and policies for which firms lobby. If firms respond to BlackRock’s letters by
lobbying for the specific issues identified in the letters, then we expect the description of
issues lobbied in firms’ lobbying disclosures to mirror the recommendations in the letter.
To test this prediction, we construct a measure based on the similarity between the most
recent BlackRock letter and the description of specific issues lobbied and study the
change in these disclosures around the letter release date. With this measure, we find
some evidence that portfolio firms exhibit changes in their lobbying behavior in the
post-letter period, on average. However, this effect is stronger for firms that are more
likely to share BlackRock’s policy preferences ex ante.
更有可能在信后期间改变其公共政策的努力(即游说)。对于这一分析，我们依赖
于 LobbyView，这是一个收集和分析公司强制性游说披露的综合数据集，它提供
了公司游说的具体法案和政策的细节。如果各公司对贝莱德的信件作出回应，就
信中确定的具体问题进行游说，那么我们预计，在公司游说披露中所游说的问题
的描述，将反映出信中的建议。为了验证这一预测，我们根据贝莱德最近的一封
信与游说的具体问题的描述之间的相似性构建了一个度量标准，并研究了信件发
布日期前后这些信息披露的变化。通过这个测量，我们发现了一些证据，证明投
资组合公司的游说行为平均在信后期间发生了变化。然而，对于那些更有可能事
先分享贝莱德政策偏好的公司来说，这种影响更为强烈。
Overall, our results are consistent with institutional investors influencing the behav-
ior of portfolio firms through broad-based public engagement. Our study contributes to
the literature on investors’ influence over portfolio firms. Prior research in this area has
focused primarily on interactions with individual firms through institutional owners’
private engagements (Becht et al. 2009; McCahery et al. 2016) and shareholder activism
(e.g., Nesbitt 1994; Brav et al. 2010; McDonough and Schoenfeld 2018). For example,
Flammer et al. (2019) find that when specific firms are targeted by environmentally
focused activists, the quality of the firms’ climate change disclosures increases. In
contrast, the BlackRock letters provide an expansive form of engagement consistent
with the legal theory proposed by Fisch et al. (2019), in which diversified investors seek
broad and low-cost mechanisms to influence portfolio firms. Moreover, using our novel
dataset of private engagements between BlackRock and portfolio firms, we provide
evidence on effects of broad-based public communication that are incre-mental to any
private engagement effects. Collectively, our evidence suggests that BlackRock’s public
engagement efforts are an effective way for BlackRock to com-municate with all
portfolio firms and a possible complement to, or substitute for, more costly individual
interactions.
总的来说，我们的结果与机构投资者通过广泛的公众参与影响投资组合公司的
行为是一致的。我们的研究有助于投资者对投资组合公司的影响的文献。此前在
这一领域的研究主要侧重于通过机构所有者的私人参与 (Becht 等， 2009;
McCahery 等，2016)和股东积极主义(如 Nesbitt 1994; Brav 等，2010; McDonough
和 Schoenfeld，2018)与个别公司的互动。例如，Flammer 等人(2019)发现，当某
些公司成为环保活动人士的目标时，这些公司的气候变化信息披露的质量就会提
高。相比之下，贝莱德的信件提供了一种与 Fisch 等人(2019 年)提出的法律理论
相一致的广泛的参与形式，其中多元化投资者寻求广泛和低成本的机制来影响投
资组合公司。此外，我们还利用贝莱德与投资组合公司之间新颖的私人业务数据
集，提供了基础广泛的公共沟通效应的证据，这种效应对任何私人业务效应都具
有增量效应。总的来说，我们的证据表明，贝莱德的公众参与努力是贝莱德与所
有投资组合公司沟通的一种有效方式，也是对成本更高的个人互动的一种可能补
充或替代。
We also contribute to the literature that links institutional ownership to portfolio
firms’ disclosure attributes. For example, Abramova et al. (2020) and Basu et al. (2019)
find that firms respond directly to institutional owners’ spotlight by increasing the
provision of voluntary disclosure and improving the quality of non-GAAP disclosures.
In contrast to existing research, our evidence suggests that BlackRock’s broad-based
public engagement is a mechanism through which institutional owners may influence
the narrative of portfolio firm’s disclosures. In addition, our finding that BlackRock
rewards responding firms with more favorable voting at shareholder meetings suggests
that portfolio firms’ disclosure response may be informative to BlackRock.
我们也贡献的文献，联系机构所有权与投资组合公司的披露属性。例如，
Abramova 等人(2020 年)和 Basu 等人(2019 年)发现，公司通过增加自愿披露的规
定和提高非公认会计原则披露的质量，直接回应了机构所有者的关注。与现有研
究相反，我们的证据表明，贝莱德基础广泛的公众参与是一种机制，通过这种机
制，机构所有者可能会影响投资组合公司披露的叙述。此外，我们的发现，贝莱
德奖励回应公司更有利的投票权在股东大会表明，投资组合公司的披露反应可能
是信息贝莱德。
Finally, we contribute to the literature that examines the role of institutional own-
ership in influencing firms’ strategic actions motivated by environmental and social
factors (e.g., Krueger et al. 2020; Grewal et al. 2016; Kim et al. 2019; Dimson et al.
2015). Complementing these studies, this paper is the first to investigate whether
institutional investors can mobilize portfolio firms through broad-based engagement and
the first to provide evidence on the direct effects of institutional ownership on firms’
public advocacy. Specifically, we find some evidence that portfolio firms align their
lobbying activities with the policies advocated in the letters, and that the effect is
particularly strong among the firms that share BlackRock’s policy preferences ex ante.
最后，我们为研究机构所有权在影响由环境和社会因素驱动的企业战略行动中
的作用的文献做出贡献(例如，Krueger 等，2020; Grewal 等，2016; Kim 等，2019;
Dimson 等，2015)。作为对这些研究的补充，本文首次调查了机构投资者是否能
够通过广泛的参与调动投资组合公司，并首次提供了机构所有权对公司公共宣传
的直接影响的证据。具体而言，我们发现一些证据表明，投资组合公司的游说活
动与信中提倡的政策相一致，而且在事先与贝莱德持有相同政策偏好的公司中，
这种影响尤其强烈。
A. Pawliczek et al.
These findings are important, considering BlackRock’s increasing discussion of

envi-ronmental and social public policy objectives that may not be broadly shared
by investors.
这些发现是重要的，考虑到贝莱德不断增加的讨论环境和社会公共政策目标，
可能不是广泛分享的投资者。
Our study is subject to certain caveats and limitations. First, companies can use a
variety of channels to communicate, to investors, how environmental, labor, and other
laws affect their business. Institutional investors are increasingly monitoring many of
these channels to gain a better understanding of corporate management’s position and
behavior on these critical issues. We focus on the 8-K disclosure channel because we
are interested in analyzing disclosures immediately following the Dear CEO letter.
However, we recognize that other channels are also important. In addition, while we
attempt to address alternative explanations related to private engagement and self-
selection, these explanations cannot be completely eliminated in our setting. Despite
these limitations, our study provides novel evidence of the impact of broad-based public
engagement by institutional investors on firms’ disclosures and public advocacy.
我们的研究受到一定的限制。首先，公司可以通过各种渠道与投资者沟通，了
解环境、劳工和其他法律如何影响他们的业务。机构投资者越来越多地监控这些
渠道，以便更好地了解企业管理层在这些关键问题上的立场和行为。我们关注 8-
k 信息披露渠道，是因为我们对紧随 Dear CEO 信之后的信息披露感兴趣。然而，
我们认识到其他渠道也很重要。此外，当我们试图解决与私人参与和自我选择相
关的其他解释时，这些解释在我们的环境中不能完全消除。尽管存在这些局限性，
但我们的研究为机构投资者广泛的公众参与对公司披露和公共宣传的影响提供了
新的证据。
2 Prior research
2 之前的研究
The role of institutional owners in monitoring portfolio firms depends on the

relative costs and benefits of monitoring. On one hand, institutional owners may
have incen-tives to incur monitoring costs if monitoring improves portfolio firm
performance and governance and attracts additional investment (Fisch et al. 2019).
On the other hand, diversified shareholders may suffer from a hold-up problem: the
benefits from moni-toring are shared by all owners, but the costs are not, so there is
a disincentive to engage. Additionally, institutional owners with primarily passive
funds may charge lower fees for these funds, limiting the resources they have
available for costly monitoring and engagement activities (Bebchuk et al. 2017);
this, too, may lead to less effective monitoring (Heath et al. 2019).
机构所有者在监测投资组合公司方面的作用取决于监测的相对成本和效益。
一方面，如果监测能够改善投资组合公司的业绩和治理，并吸引更多的投资，
机构所有者可能有动机承担监测成本(Fisch 等，2019 年)。另一方面，多元化
的股东可能会遇到一个阻碍问题: 监管带来的好处是所有所有者共享的，但成
本不是，因此不鼓励参与。此外，主要拥有被动基金的机构所有者可能对这
些基金收取较低的费用，从而限制了它们可用于昂贵的监测和参与活动的资
源(Bebchuk 等，2017 年) ; 这也可能导致监测效率较低(Heath 等，2019 年)。
Prior research indicates that when institutional investors monitor their portfolio
firms, they enjoy some success in influencing firm behavior. For example, portfolio
firms respond to monitoring by including more independent directors and more
equal voting rights (Appel et al. 2016). Relevant to our setting, one way in which
BlackRock influences managerial strategies is through private engagement with
portfolio firms. For example, between 2016 and 2020, BlackRock reported an
average of 858 engagements per year with firms in the Americas region. These
engagements most commonly focused on governance issues.
先前的研究表明，当机构投资者监督他们的投资组合公司时，他们在影响
公司行为方面享有一些成功。例如，投资组合公司通过包括更多的独立董事
和更平等的投票权来回应监管(Appel 等，2016)。与我们的背景相关，贝莱德
影响管理策略的一种方式是通过私人参与投资组合公司。例如，在 2016 年到
2020 年之间，贝莱德报告每年平均与美洲地区的公司签约 858 次。这些业务
往往集中在治理问题上。
While BlackRock continues to engage with firms on an individual basis, in 2012
it implemented a new broad-based public engagement strategy: Dear CEO letters.
Addressed to the CEOs of portfolio firms, these letters are made publicly available
on BlackRock’s website, most often in January or early February of each year. 6 In
them, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink writes about key issues and favored strategies.
Early Dear CEO letters focus on policies pertaining to long-term growth, strong
corporate governance, and retirement security, but more recent ones call for
collective support for various government policy objectives and
虽然贝莱德继续在个人基础上与公司合作，但在 2012 年，它实施了一项新
的基础广泛的公众参与战略: 亲爱的 CEO 来信。这些信件是写给投资组合公
司的首席执行官们的，通常在每年的 1 月或 2 月初公布在贝莱德的网站上。
在这些信件中，贝莱德首席执行官拉里 ·芬克写了一些关键问题和青睐的策
略。早期亲爱的首席执行官信件主要关注与长期增长、强有力的公司治理和
退休保障有关的政策，但最近的一些信件呼吁集体支持各种政府政策目标和
政策
6 See https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter for letters. We

include the 2017 Dear CEO letter in its entirety in Appendix 1.
参见 https://www.blackrock. com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-CEO-letter for letters。
CEO’ letters
advocate for a wide range of issues, including work-retraining, healthcare, and

environmental initiatives. The use of such letters is consistent with the idea that
institutional investors seek to promote broad reforms across many firms, which can
substitute for (or complement) more costly private interactions with individual
firms (e.g., Fisch et al. 2019).
倡导广泛的问题，包括工作再培训，医疗保健和环境倡议。使用这种函件符
合这样一种观点，即机构投资者寻求促进许多公司的广泛改革，这种改革可
以取代(或补充)私人与个别公司之间成本更高的互动(例如 Fisch 等，2019 年)。
In the letters, Fink encourages firms to acknowledge and quantify the impact of
major legislative or regulatory changes, as well as to detail, in public disclosure, the
strategic actions they have taken to mitigate/capitalize on those changes
(BlackRock 2018). Indeed, an important input into institutional inves-tors’
engagement activities is the information they obtain from portfolio firms about
various business risks and the strategies for navigating those risks. His-torically,
large institutions with diverse holdings are more likely to demand public disclosure,
to minimize the cost of gathering the information necessary to monitor portfolio
firms (Bird and Karolyi 2016; Boone and White 2015; Bushee and Noe 2000; Jung
2013). Public disclosures not only are useful for monitoring portfolio firms,
particularly when private engagement is infeasible, but also may be valuable if they
attract new investors to the institution or fund (e.g., to justify the inclusion of a firm
in a socially responsible fund (Epstein and Freedman 1994)).
Fink 在信中鼓励企业承认和量化重大立法或监管变化的影响，并在公开披
露中详细说明它们为减轻这些变化/利用这些变化而采取的战略行动
(BlackRock 2018)。事实上，机构投资者参与活动的一个重要投入是他们从投
资组合公司获得有关各种商业风险和应对这些风险的策略的信息。从理论上
讲，持有不同股份的大型机构更有可能要求公开披露，以尽量减少收集监督
投资组合公司所需信息的成本(Bird 和 Karolyi，2016; Boone 和 White，2015;
Bushee 和 Noe，2000; Jung，2013)。公开披露不仅有助于监测投资组合公司，
特别是在私人参与不可行的情况下，而且如果它们能够吸引新的投资者加入
机构或基金(例如，证明将一家公司纳入对社会负责的基金是合理的(Epstein
和 Freedman，1994)) ，也可能是有价值的。
Ex ante, it is not clear whether firms will respond to BlackRock’s letters through
their disclosures. On one hand, BlackRock, one of the largest institu-tional
investors (with over $7 trillion in assets under management),7 has a substantial
voice and may use its platform to push portfolio firms toward favored strategies.
For example, when firms are not responsive, passive investors can take disciplinary
actions such as voting against proposals (Bolton et al. 2020). In addition, it is also
possible that the Dear CEO letter shines a spotlight on BlackRock-owned firms, and
that firms will respond to the letter to avoid negative attention (Abramova et al.
2020). Thus, firms may rationally respond to broad-based public advocacy from
BlackRock to the extent that they believe they will suffer negative consequences if
they do not. On the other hand, portfolio firms may determine that the costs of
responding outweigh the benefits. For example, costs can include direct
implementation costs, proprietary costs associated with disclosing specific
strategies, or costs associated with alienating other investors that do not share
BlackRock’s policy preferences.8 In addition, portfolio firms may assume that
disciplinary actions associated with a non-response are less likely when the public
engagement is broad-based. Thus, whether firms will respond to broad-based public
engagement is an open empirical question that we seek to address.
事先，目前还不清楚公司是否会通过他们的披露来回应贝莱德的信件。一
方面，贝莱德是最大的机构投资者之一(管理着超过 7 万亿美元的资产) ，7 拥
有强大的话语权，可能会利用其平台推动投资组合公司采取有利的策略。例
如，当公司没有反应时，被动投资者可以采取纪律措施，如投票反对提案
(Bolton et al。2020)。此外，“亲爱的 CEO”这封信也有可能使人们关注贝莱德
旗下的公司，而这些公司也会对这封信做出回应，以避免负面关注(Abramova
et al. 2020)。因此，公司可能会理性地回应来自贝莱德的广泛的公共宣传，以
至于他们相信如果不这样做，他们将会遭受负面的后果。另一方面，投资组
合公司可能认为回应的成本大于收益。例如，成本可能包括直接执行成本、
与披露具体战略相关的专有成本，或与疏远与贝莱德政策偏好不同的其他投
资者相关的成本。8 此外，投资组合公司可能会认为，当公众参与基础广泛
时，与不作出回应相关的纪律行动的可能性较小。因此，公司是否会回应广
泛的公众参与是一个开放的经验问题，我们寻求解决。
7 As reported on December 31, 2019.

据 2019 年 12 月 31 日报道。
8
For example, in its 2019 letter to board members, State Street says, We approach these issues from the
perspective of long-term investment value, not from a political or social agenda (aka ‘values’). This distinction
is especially important to understand in light of growing concerns about the influence of large index managers.
It is the focus on long-term value that drives our engagement around effective, independent board leadership;
board quality, including cognitive diversity enhanced by better gender diversity; and environmental sustain-
ability. Thus, it is not clear that State Street would value some of the advocacy in the BlackRock letters.
例如，道富银行在 2019 年致董事会成员的信中表示，我们从长期投资价值的角度来看待这些问题，而
不是从政治或社会议程(又称“价值”)的角度来看待这些问题。鉴于人们越来越担心大型指数经理的影响
力，理解这种区别尤其重要。正是对长期价值的关注，推动着我们围绕有效、独立的董事会领导、董
事会质量(包括性别多样性提高后的认知多样性)以及环境可持续能力展开合作。因此，道富银行是否会
重视贝莱德信件中的一些倡议，目前尚不清楚。
A. Pawliczek et al.
3 Data and measurement

3 数据和测量
3.1 Key variable definitions

3.1 主要变量定义
3.1.1 Measurement of BlackRock ownership

3.1.1 贝莱德所有权的衡量
We expect that firms with significant BlackRock ownership are more likely to
respond to BlackRock’s letters. Our first proxy for significant BlackRock ownership
is an indicator set equal to one if BlackRock has a blockholding interest in the firm,
where blockholding is defined as ownership greater than 5% of outstanding shares
(BlackRockBH).9 Although the 5% cutoff is arbitrary, blockholders are generally
considered to be influential owners of firms, and managers of block-held firms are
more likely to respond to the blockholder’s voice accordingly (Edmans 2014).10
This simple dichotomous variable, while useful for assessing economic magnitudes,
does not consider the degree of BlackRock ownership beyond the 5% level. Thus,
for our second measure, BlackRock%, we calculate BlackRock’s holding interest in
firm i at the end of the quarter immediately preceding the BlackRock letter. We
form decile ranks for the percentage of BlackRock ownership (BlackRock%) to
mitigate skewness in the variable.
我们预计，拥有大量贝莱德股权的公司更有可能回复贝莱德的信函。我们的
第一个代表重大贝莱德所有权的指标是，如果贝莱德持有该公司的大宗股权，
那么大宗股权被定义为持有超过 5% 的流通股(BlackRockBH)。9 尽管 5% 的
临界值是任意的，但大宗股权人通常被认为是公司的有影响力的所有者，而
且大宗股权公司的管理者更有可能相应地响应大宗股权人的声音 (Edmans
2014)。10 这个简单的二分法变量虽然有助于评估经济规模，但没有考虑超过
5% 水平的贝莱德所有权程度。因此，对于我们的第二个衡量标准，贝莱德% ，
我们计算贝莱德在紧接着贝莱德信之前的季度末对公司 i 的持股权益。我们
对贝莱德所有权的百分比(贝莱德%)进行十进制排序，以减少变量的偏差。
3.1.2 Measurement of firms’ disclosure response

3.1.2 公司披露反应的测量
If firms respond to BlackRock’s letters by discussing topics outlined in the letter

immediately after the letter is released, then we expect firms’ disclosure to exhibit
similar language to that of the letter.11 We capture firms’ disclosure response to the
most recent BlackRock letter using a cosine similarity score. These scores are the
most commonly used method of measurement to calculate document similarity in
accounting and finance (Loughran and McDonald 2016). As employed in the
literature, cosine similarity scores are the cosine of the angle between the word
vectors representing the language of any two texts, and they range between zero
and one. Appendix 3 provides more details about our cosine similarity score
calculations (including a simple illustra-tive example). Basing the disclosure
similarity measure on cosine similarity scores makes it flexible across periods,
allowing us to measure firms’ disclosure response more precisely as the topics of
interest to BlackRock change over time. Because we restrict our disclosure measure
to 8-Ks in the 30 days immediately following BlackRock’s annual letter, we
calculate this measure only once per year for each firm in our sample.
如果公司在信件发布后立即通过讨论信件中概述的话题来回应贝莱德的信件，
那么我们预计公司的信息披露将表现出与信件相似的语言。11 我们使用余弦
距离分数来捕捉公司对贝莱德最近一封信件的信息披露反应。这些分数是计
算会计和财务文件相似性最常用的测量方法(Loughran and McDonald 2016)。
正如文献中所使用的那样，余弦相似度分数是代表任意两个文本语言的词向
量之间夹角的余弦距离，它们的范围在 0 和 1 之间。附录 3 提供了更多关于
余弦距离相似度计算的细节(包括一个简单的示例)。基于余弦距离得分的披露
相似性度量使得它在不同时期具有灵活性，使我们能够更精确地衡量公司的
披露反应，因为贝莱德感兴趣的话题随着时间的推移而变化。由于我们将披
露指标限制在贝莱德发出年度信函后的 30 天内，因此我们对样本中的每家公
司每年只计算一次这一指标。
Because we are interested in the extent to which firms alter their disclosures in
response to the BlackRock letter, we identify changes in disclosure similarity,
DisclosureSimilarity, which is the similarity of the text of the BlackRock letter to
the 8-Ks filed 30 days subsequent to the letter, minus the similarity of the text of the
由于我们感兴趣的是公司在多大程度上改变了他们的披露，以回应贝莱德的
信，我们确定的变化披露相似性，披露相似性，这是相似的文字，贝莱德的
信件提交后 30 天提交的 8-k，减去文字的相似性
9 See Appendix 2 for a complete list of variable definitions.

有关变量定义的完整列表，请参见附录 2。
10 BlackRock has some ownership stake in 98% of firm-years in our disclosure sample. Thus, there is
very limited variation if ownership is defined with a simple indicator.
在我们的披露样本中，贝莱德在 98% 的公司年份中拥有一些所有权股份。因此，如果用一个简
单的指标来定义所有权，那么变化是非常有限的。
11 It is possible that firms’ response to BlackRock’s letters will involve firm-specific language or that
firms will discuss topics from the letters using different words. In this case, our measure will fail to
capture all of the firm’s disclosure response and introduce attenuation bias into our results.
公司对贝莱德信件的回应可能会涉及公司特有的语言，或者公司会用不同的词语讨论信件中的话
题。在这种情况下，我们的措施将不能捕捉到所有的公司的披露回应，并引入衰减偏见到我们的
结果。
CEO’ letters
BlackRock letter to the 8-Ks filed in the 90 days prior.12 We use 8-Ks because
managers can exercise some discretion over the timing and content of these
documents (He and Plumlee 2020). Moreover, 8-Ks are an important disclosure
channel that firms use to communicate their supplementary filings (e.g., strategic
plans and sustainability reports)—elements of public disclosures that are monitored
by BlackRock’s steward-ship team. Finally, because we investigate disclosure
immediately following the letter, we cannot use earnings announcements or 10-
Ks/10-Qs as our primary disclosure measures, as their timing is inflexible and the
filings may not occur in the appropriate windows.13
我们之所以使用 8-k，是因为管理者可以对这些文件的时间和内容行使一定的
自由裁量权(He and Plumlee 2020)。此外，8-k 是一个重要的信息披露渠道，
公司使用它来传达补充文件(例如，战略计划和可持续性报告)——公开信息披
露的要素，由贝莱德的管理团队监督。最后，由于我们在信函发出后立即进
行披露调查，我们不能使用盈利公告或 10-ks/10-Qs 作为我们的主要披露措施，
因为它们的时间安排不灵活，而且申报可能不会在适当的窗口进行
We are motivated by the letters’ recent shift (i.e., those analyzed in our sample) to
include recommendations related to various environmental and social policies. These
letters provide a powerful setting in which to investigate the impact of broad-based
public engagement: the fact that the content of BlackRock’s letters varies from year to
year and diverges from the preferences of other investors increases our confidence that
we are identifying a response to the letter and not a broader change in sentiment.
我们的动机是信件的最近的转变(即，那些在我们的样本分析) ，包括各种环境
和社会政策的建议。这些信件为调查基础广泛的公众参与的影响提供了一个强有
力的背景: 贝莱德信件的内容每年都有所不同，而且与其他投资者的偏好不同，
这增强了我们的信心: 我们确定的是对信件的回应，而不是情绪的更广泛变化。
Because our measure of disclosure similarity captures responses to all aspects of the
letter, we perform a validation exercise to ensure that firms’ disclosures respond (at least
in part) to BlackRock’s environmental and social recommendations. To do this, we
identify policy-oriented topics discussed in the letters and create a representative word
list for each policy topic. We identify seven policy-oriented topics: Climate,
Infrastructure, Technology, Tax, Workforce, Retirement, and Globalization. Table 1,
Panel A details policy categories, the years in which the topics are discussed, and the
respective word lists.14 Figure 1 plots the frequency of policy-oriented words men-
tioned in firms’ 8-Ks for high-disclosure-similarity firm-years relative to low-disclosure-
similarity firm-years. If DisclosureSimilarity is capturing firms’ discussion of topics
from the BlackRock letter, we expect policy-oriented word counts to be higher for firms
with higher values of DisclosureSimilarity. Consistent with our expectations, high
DisclosureSimilarity firms mention more than twice as many policy-oriented words as
low DisclosureSimilarity firms. Moreover, Table 1, Panel B reveals that high
DisclosureSimilarity firms also exhibit statistically higher word counts for six of the
seven policy categories in years when that policy category is mentioned in the
BlackRock letter. This analysis validates our assertion that the disclosure similarity
measure is capturing firms’ response to the Dear CEO letters. In addition, in
由于我们对披露相似性的衡量方法包含了对信函各个方面的回应，我们进行了
验证工作，以确保公司的披露对贝莱德的环境和社会建议做出回应(至少部分回
应)。为了做到这一点，我们确定了信件中讨论的政策导向话题，并为每个政策话
题创建了一个具有代表性的词汇列表。我们确定了七个政策导向的主题: 气候、
基础设施、技术、税收、劳动力、退休和全球化。表 1，小组 a 详细说明了政策
类别、讨论主题的年份以及各自的词汇清单。图 1 绘制了公司 8-k 中相对于低披
露相似性公司年而言，高披露相似性公司年中男子提到的政策导向词的频率。如
果披露相似性能够捕捉到公司对贝莱德信中话题的讨论，那么我们预计，对于披
露相似性价值较高的公司来说，政策导向的词汇计数将更高。与我们的预期一致，
高披露相似性公司提到的政策导向词是低披露相似性公司的两倍多。此外，表 1，
b 小组显示，高披露相似性的公司在贝莱德信函中提到的七个保单类别中的六个
年份也表现出统计学上更高的字数。这个分析证实了我们的断言，即信息披露相
似性度量是反映企业对 Dear CEO 信件的反应。此外，在
12 We summarize the distribution of 8-K item numbers in Appendix 4. We find that all item numbers are
represented in both the pre- and post-period samples. Although we experience sample attrition (n = 6337), we
我们总结了附录 4 中 8-k 项目编号的分布。我们发现所有项目编号都表示在前期和后期样本中。尽管我
们经历了样本损耗(n = 6337) ，但我们
restrict our sample to include only Item 2.02, 7.01 and 8.01 8-Ks. We provide some evidence that our
result is robust to using only those filings (while BlackRockBH coefficient is insignificant, the
coefficient on BlackRock% = 0.002, t-stat =1.666, untabulated).
限制我们的样品只包括项目 2.02,7.01 和 8.018-k。我们提供了一些证据，我们的结果是稳健的使
用只有这些文件(虽然 BlackRockBH 系数是无意义的，系数在 BlackRock% = 0.002，t-stat = 1.666，
未列表)。
13 Although we focus on 8-Ks, we expect the change to be occurring across firms’ various disclosure
outlets which is why we perform the 10-K analysis. Moreover, we do not necessarily expect managers to
issue new 8-Ks in response to the letter, rather we expect managers to alter the text of any 8-Ks they
issue. This is because even though many 8-Ks are mandatory, managers can exercise discretion in how
they communicate manda-tory information.
虽然我们专注于 8-k，我们预计变化将发生在公司的各种披露渠道，这就是为什么我们执行 10-k
分析。此外，我们并不一定期望管理人员发出新的 8-k 作为回应，而是期望管理人员改变他们发
出的任何 8-k 的文本。这是因为尽管许多 8-k 是强制性的，但管理者可以在如何传达强制性信息
方面行使自由裁量权。
14Topics and word lists were developed using a two-step process. First, each author individually read
and coded each letter. Second, only topics and words identified by all three authors were used for this
validation exercise. We create short lists where possible, as the length of word lists can be positively
correlated with noise in word count measures (Loughran and McDonald 2016).
主题和词表是通过两个步骤编写的。首先，每个作者分别阅读和编码每个字母。其次，这个验证
练习只使用了所有三位作者确定的主题和词汇。我们尽可能创建短列表，因为单词列表的长度可
以与单词计数测量中的噪声正相关(Loughran 和 McDonald，2016)。
A.
Pawliczek
et al.
A.
Pawliczek
1098 et al.
Table 1 DisclosureSimilarity
validation
表 1 披露相似性验证
Panel A: Word
Lists
面板 a: Word
列表
Topic Years Word List
主题岁月单词列表
2016, 2017,
2018 climate,
Climate 2016,2017,2 sustainability
气候 018 气候，可持续发展
Infrastructure infrastructure
基础设施 2016 基础设施
2016, 2017,
2018
Technology 2016,2017,2 technology
技术 018 科技
2016, 2017, tax, tax reform,
2018 repatriation
Tax 2016,2017,2 税收，税收改革，
税务局 018 遣返
2017, 2018, skill, worker, wage,
2019 job,
Workforce 2017,2018,2 技能，工人，工
劳动力 019 资，工作,
salary, displace,
employ
工资，调动，雇
用
2017, 2018,
2019
Retirement 2017,2018,2 savings, retirement,
退休 019 储蓄，退休,
well-being,
financial
福利，财务
literacy
读写能力
Globalization globalization
全球化 2017 全球化
Panel B: Policy Word Counts by
DisclosureSimilarity
面板 b: 按披露相似性计算的政策词汇
DisclosureSimi Differen
Variable Mean larity ce
变量 N 刻薄披露相似性差异
<P50 >P50
< P50 > P50
General Count:
总数:
**
RelevantPolicy *
Words 7,900 **
相关政策词汇 7900 50.460 33.208 67.687 34.479 *
Topic Counts:
话题计数:
Climate 6,227
气候 6,227 0.261 0.241 0.282 0.041 *
Infrastructure 2,206
基础设施 2206 0.680 0.634 0.727 0.092
**
*
Technology 6,227 **
技术 6,227 2.403 1.912 2.892 0.980 *
**
*
Tax 6,227 **
税务局 6,227 34.17 28.18 40.14 11.95 *
**
*
Workforce 5,694 **
劳动力 5694 22.53 7.958 36.95 28.99 *
**
*
Retirement 5,694 **
退休 5694 5.142 3.986 6.286 2.301 *
**
*
Globalization 2,138 **
全球化 2138 4.751 2.220 7.194 4.974 *
Note: Table 1 presents the details of our DisclosureSimilarity validation exercise. Panel A presents the topics
and word counts identified as relevant policy-specific topics from each of the four letters included in our study.
We identified the topics through a two-step process. First, each author individually read and coded each letter.
Second, only topics and words identified by all three authors were used for this validation exercise. Panel B
contains policy word counts for the years in which the topic is relevant (see Panel A), split on high vs. low
DisclosureSimilarity. These values are presented as a percentage of the relevant years’ mean in Fig. 1. ***, **,
and * represent significance levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively (two-tailed)
注意: 表 1 显示了我们的披露相似性验证工作的细节。面板 a 列出了我们研究中包含的四个字母中的每
一个被确定为相关政策特定主题的主题和字数。我们通过两步过程确定了主题。首先，每个作者单独
阅读并编码每封信。其次，这个验证练习只使用了所有三位作者确定的主题和词汇。面板 b 包含主题
相关年份的政策词计数(见面板 a) ，分为高与低披露相似性。这些值以图 1 中相关年份平均值的百分比
表示。* * * ，* * 和 * 分别代表 1% ，5% 和 10% 的显着性水平(双尾)
Appendix 5, we provide examples of post-letter 8-K disclosures that include a policy-

oriented discussion that is similar to the discussion included in BlackRock’s letters.
附录 5，我们提供了信后 8-k 披露的例子，其中包括一个面向政策的讨论，类似
于贝莱德信中的讨论。
Our measure of disclosure similarity captures at least three categories of responses. First,
portfolio firms may use vague or boilerplate language to acknowledge topics discussed in the
letter without providing any additional discussion of the firm’s strategies. Second, firms may
convey opposition to BlackRock’s favored strategies. Finally, firms may signal current
alignment (or plans to align) with BlackRock’s favored strategies through additional disclo-
sures. To better understand whether portfolio firms are providing uninformative disclosures
or expressing opposition to BlackRock’s policy recommendations through disclosure, in
section 4.2, we investigate BlackRock’s opposition to management (as voiced through
BlackRock’s votes on shareholder proposals at the annual shareholder meeting). In addition,
我们对信息披露相似性的衡量方法至少包括三类反应。首先，投资组合公司可能使
用模糊或样板语言来确认信中讨论的话题，而不提供任何关于公司战略的额外讨论。
其次，公司可能会反对贝莱德青睐的策略。最后，公司可能会通过额外的披露信息来
表明当前与贝莱德青睐的战略一致(或计划一致)。为了更好地理解投资组合公司是否
在通过披露提供信息不足的信息，或表达对贝莱德政策建议的反对意见，在第 4.2 节
中，我们调查了贝莱德对管理层的反对意见(正如贝莱德在年度股东大会上对股东提议
的投票所表达的)。此外,
CEO’ letters
A: RelevantPolicyWords
相关政策词汇
80
八十
70
70
60
60
50
50
40
40
30
30
20
20
10
10
0
DisclosureSimilarity <P50 DisclosureSimilarity >P50
披露相似性 < p50 披露相似性 > P50
B: Topic Counts by DisclosureSimilarity

按披露相似性分列的话题数
1.8
1.8
1.6
1.6
1.4
1.4
1.2
1.2
1
0.8
0.8
0.6
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.2
0.2
DisclosureSimilarit DisclosureSimila
y <P50 rity >P50
披露相似性 < P50 披露相似性 >
P50
Fig. 1 Relevant policy words and DisclosureSimilarity. Note: Fig. 1 plots the frequency of policy-oriented
words mentioned in firms’ 8-Ks for high-disclosure-similarity firm-years relative to low-disclosure-similarity
firm-years. We identify policy-oriented topics discussed in the letters and create a representative word list for
each policy topic. We identified the seven policy-oriented topics—Climate, Infrastructure, Technology, Tax,
Workforce, Retirement, and Globalization—through a two-step process. First, each author individually read and
coded each letter. Second, only topics and words identified by all three authors were used for this validation
exercise. Topics and word counts are presented in Table 1, Panel A. Panel A of this figure contains the total
word counts from all relevant topics, split on high and low DisclosureSimilarity. Panel B breaks out the word
counts by topic. While the raw counts are presented in Table 1, Panel B, this figure reports high and low
DisclosureSimilarity counts as a percentage of the average to account for differences in scale across topics
图 1 相关政策词汇和披露相似性。注: 图 1 绘制了高披露相似性公司年与低披露相似性公司年在公司的
8-k 中提到的政策导向词的频率。我们确定了信件中讨论的面向政策的主题，并为每个政策主题创建了
一个具有代表性的单词列表。我们通过两个步骤确定了七个以政策为导向的主题: 气候、基础设施、技
术、税收、劳动力、退休和全球化。首先，每个作者分别阅读和编码每封信。其次，这个验证练习只
使用了所有三位作者确定的主题和词汇。主题和单词计数列于表 1，面板 a。面板 a 包含所有相关主题
的总单词计数，分为高和低披露相似性。面板 b 按主题划分单词计数。虽然原始计数列于表 1 b，但这
一数字报告的披露相似性高低占平均值的百分比，说明了各专题之间规模上的差异
we investigate whether firms are taking actions, beyond disclosure, to further align them-selves
with BlackRock’s recommendations. Specifically, the letters also incorporate a dimen-sion of
public of advocacy (e.g., BlackRock makes specific public policy recommendations related to
sustainability and tax reform, as well as investments in infrastructure). Thus, we study whether
firms’ public advocacy (i.e., lobbying) changes following the release of the letter in section 4.3.
The analysis in section 4.3 provides additional evidence that at least some
我们调查公司是否采取了除披露之外的行动，以进一步与贝莱德的建议保持一致。具体而
言，这些信件还包含了公共宣传的内容(例如，贝莱德就可持续性和税收改革以及基础设施
投资提出了具体的公共政策建议)。因此，我们研究公司的公共宣传(即游说)是否在第 4.3
节的信件发布后发生了变化。第 4.3 节的分析提供了额外的证据，至少有一些
firms take costly actions, beyond disclosure, that are specific to the issues discussed
in the letter.15
除了披露信息之外，公司还采取了代价高昂的行动，这些行动与信中讨论的
问题有关。15
3.2 Sample
3.2 样本
In this section, we outline the restrictions we impose on our sample period and firms to arrive
at our estimation sample. Our sample period is constrained by the duration over which
BlackRock began issuing letters that advocated for a wide range of issues, thereby increasing
the tension regarding whether and how firms should respond to BlackRock’s public engage-
ment efforts. When BlackRock began issuing letters in 2012, the letters focused on long-term
investment, retirement, and corporate governance. Beginning in 2016, the content of the
letters expanded to include more controversial issues such as climate change and workforce
disparity brought about by technological development and globalization. Thus, we focus on
BlackRock letters beginning in 2016 and restrict our sample to 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.
We then require CRSP, Compustat, and Thomson Financial 13F coverage, as well as non-
missing variables for key controls. Finally, we require that firms file a Form 8-K during both
the pre- and post-letter windows (90 days prior to the letter and 30 days subsequent to the
letter, respectively). As Table 2 shows, these steps result in 7,900 sample firm-years for
3,550 unique sample firms.
在这一节中，我们概述了我们对样本周期和企业到达我们的估计样本所施加的限制。
我们的样本周期受到贝莱德开始发表信函的时间限制，这些信函主张广泛的问题，从
而加剧了关于公司是否应该以及如何应对贝莱德公众参与努力的紧张局势。当贝莱德
在 2012 年开始发信时，这些信件集中在长期投资、退休和公司治理方面。从 2016 年
开始，这些信件的内容扩大到包括更多有争议的问题，如气候变化和由技术发展和全
球化带来的劳动力不平等。因此，我们将重点放在 2016 年开始的贝莱德信件上，并
将样本限制在 2016 年、2017 年、2018 年和 2019 年。然后，我们需要 CRSP，
Compustat 和 Thomson Financial 13F 覆盖率，以及关键控制的非缺失变量。最后，我
们要求公司在信前和信后两个窗口(分别在信前 90 天和信后 30 天)提交一份表格 8-k。
如表 2 所示，这些步骤产生了 3550 个独特样本公司的 7900 个样本公司年。
Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics for this sample. We winsorize all
continuous variables at the 1% and 99% levels and present variable definitions in
Appendix 2. BlackRock is a blockholder for 63% of our sample firm-years, with
mean holdings of $480 M (untabulated). State Street and Vanguard are
blockholders for 16% and 57% of firm-years, respectively. Moreover, 65% of our
sample firms issue at least one Item 2.02 8-K after the letter, while 27% issue at
least one Item 7.01 8-K and 28% issue at least one Item 8.01 8-K.
表 3 展示了这个样本的描述统计学。我们在 1% 和 99% 的水平上对所有连
续变量进行筛选，并在附录 2 中给出变量定义。贝莱德是我们 63% 的样本公
司年的大股东，平均持股 4.8 亿美元(未列表)。道富银行和先锋银行分别占公
司年份的 16% 和 57% 。此外，65% 的样本公司在信件发出后至少发出一个
项目 2.028-k，27% 的公司至少发出一个项目 7.018-k，28% 的公司至少发出
一个项目 8.018-k。
4 Research design and results
4 研究设计和结果
4.1 Firms’ disclosure response

4.1 企业的信息披露回应
To evaluate disclosure similarity for BlackRock-owned firms during the post-letter

period, we estimate the following model:
为了评估信后期间贝莱德所有公司的信息披露相似性，我们估计了以下模型:
DisclosureSimilarity ¼ α þ β1BlackRockOwnershipi;t þ ∑δ Controlsi;t þ γFE

披露相似性 1 -- 4 α + β1BlackRockOwnershipi; t + ∑ δ Controlsi; t + γFE
þε ð1Þ
? ε ー1
15 While changing their lobbying activities is one action that firms could take in response to BlackRock’s public
advocacy, firms could change other activities as well. In untabulated analysis, we collect environmental, social,
and governance (ESG) activity scores from Thomson Reuters Datastream and investigate whether ESG activity
scores change following the release of the letter, conditional on BlackRock ownership. We do not observe any
significant variation. This is likely because the Datastream ESG activity score captures a broader set of issues
than BlackRock focuses on in the letter. Thus, changes in ESG ratings may be less sensitive to BlackRock’s
letters. It is also unclear how quickly changes in firms’ underlying ESG activities are reflected in the ESG
activity score. Finally, there is disagreement in ESG scores, suggesting that the measures may contain too much
noise to identify an effect (e.g., Christensen et al., 2019).
虽然改变他们的游说活动是一个行动，公司可以采取回应贝莱德的公共宣传，公司也可以改变其他活
动。在非表格分析中，我们从汤森路透数据流收集环境、社会和治理(ESG)活动评分，并调查 ESG 活
动评分是否在信件发布后发生变化，条件是贝莱德所有权。我们没有观察到任何显着的变化。这很可
能是因为 Datastream ESG 活动评分比 BlackRock 在信中关注的问题更广泛。因此，ESG 评级的变化可
能对 BlackRock 的信件不那么敏感。同样不清楚的是，ESG 活动评分反映企业潜在 ESG 活动的变化有
多快。最后，在 ESG 评分中存在分歧，这表明这些测量可能包含了太多的噪音以至于无法确定一个效
应(例如，Christensen 等，2019)。
CEO’ letters
Table 2 Sample reconciliation
表 2 对账样本
Firm- Firm
Years s
公司年公司
9,67
Compustat Firm-Years with non-missing total assets 2016– 3
2019 32,874 9,67
Compustat 公司-2016-2019 年无失踪总资产年份 32,874 3
Exclude:
不包括:
(3,84
4)
Firms without CRSP data (13,380) (3,84
没有 CRSP 数据的公司 (13,380) 4)
(697
)
Firm-years without institutional ownership (2,635) (697
没有机构所有权的年份 (2,635) )
(349
Firm-years with insufficient data for other key controls )
and FE (2,701) (349
其他关键控制和有限元数据不足的年份 (2,701) )
(1,23
Firms-years without an 8-K in both the [−90,0] and 3)
[1,30] disclosure windows (6,258) (1,23
公司-在[-90,0]和[1,30]披露窗口中没有 8-k 的年份 (6,258) 3)
3,55
Sample for disclosure analysis 7,900 0
披露分析样本 7900 3550
Note: Table 2 reconciles our sample from a broad 2016–2019 Compustat sample to the firm-years used
in our primary analysis. Specifically, the table provides details about attrition resulting from each of our
key data sources, at both the firm-year and the firm level
注: 表 2 调和了我们从 2016-2019 年 Compustat 样本到我们主要分析中使用的公司年份的样本。具
体来说，这个表格提供了我们每个关键数据源在公司年和公司层面的损耗细节
where the dependent variable, DisclosureSimilarity, is measured as the similarity

between the BlackRock letter and the text of the firm’s 8-Ks released in the first 30
days after the letter, minus the similarity of the letter to the 8-Ks filed in the 90 days
prior, as defined in section 3.1.2. BlackRockOwnership represents one of the
proxies for BlackRock ownership outlined in section 3.1.1 (BlackRockBH or
BlackRock%). If firms owned by BlackRock are responding to the letter by altering
their disclosures, we expect that the estimated coefficient on BlackRockOwnership
will be positively associated with DisclosureSimilarity (i.e., β1 > 0).
因变量，披露相似性，是衡量贝莱德信件和该公司在信件发出后的头 30 天内
公布的 8-k 的文本之间的相似性，减去信件与第 3.1.2 节定义的在 90 天前提
交的 8-k 的相似性。贝莱德所有权代表了第 3.1.1 节 (BlackRockBH 或
BlackRock%)中概述的贝莱德所有权的代理之一。如果贝莱德所有的公司通过
改变披露来回应这封信，我们预计贝莱德所有权的估计系数将与披露相似性
正相关(即 β1 > 0)。
We control for various disclosure attributes, as well as a variety of firm characteristics
that may influence firms’ disclosure choices (e.g., Li and Zhang 2015; Huang et al. 2017;
Boone and White 2015; Field et al. 2005). BlackRock ownership is highly correlated with
State Street and Vanguard ownership. As the two other members of the Big Three, these
institutions are likely to be the institutional owners most similar to BlackRock. To address
the possibility that portfolio firms discuss topics outlined in the letter because other institu-
tional investors demand similar information as BlackRock, we include controls for
ownership by State Street (StateStreetBH, StateStreet%) and Vanguard (VanguardBH,
Vanguard%). In addition, we include controls for the total number of blockholders
16
(NumberBH) and the total amount of institutional ownership (IO).
我们控制各种披露属性，以及可能影响公司披露选择的各种公司特征(例如，Li 和
Zhang 2015; Huang 等，2017; Boone 和 White 2015; Field 等，2005)。贝莱德所有权与
道富银行和先锋集团的所有权高度相关。作为三大会计师事务所的另外两个成员，这
些机构可能是与贝莱德最相似的机构所有者。为了解决投资组合公司讨论信中概述的
话题的可能性，因为其他机构投资者需要类似贝莱德的信息，我们包括道富银行
(StateStreetBH，StateStreet%)和先锋银行(Vanguard，Vanguard%)对所有权的控制。此
外，我们还包括对大股东总数(NumberBH)和机构所有权总额(IO)的控制
Moreover, it is possible that disclosure similarity scores are correlated with the discretion-
ary portion of 8-Ks and the overall amount of disclosure. Thus, we include indicators for
items 2.02 (Item202), 7.01 (Item701), and 8.01 (Item801), as well as a control for the total
number of 8-Ks issued during the period (Number8Ks). Our results are also robust to
controlling for the total number of words included in 8Ks issued in the pre- and post-period
(untabulated). We further control for firms’ general disclosure tendencies by including
此外，披露相似性得分可能与 8-k 的自由裁量权部分和披露的总量相关。因此，我
们包括项目 2.02(Item202)、7.01(Item701)和 8.01(Item801)的指标，以及在此期间发行
的 8-k 总数的控制(Number8Ks)。我们的结果对于控制前期和后期(未列表)发行的 8k
中包含的总字数也是稳健的。我们进一步控制公司的一般披露倾向，包括
16
Another potential concern is that proxy advisors or other organizations such as ISS and Investor Steward-
ship Group (ISG) are expressing preferences similar to those in the BlackRock letter, and that firms are
responding to guidelines published by these organizations. We do not believe this alternative explanation can
fully explain our results, for two reasons. First, we do not find that these organizations consistently update their
guidelines at the same time as the BlackRock letter. Second, if firms were responding to other organizations’
guidance related to ESG issues instead of to the BlackRock letter, changes in disclosure similarity should not
vary specifically with BlackRock ownership, as these organizations represent a large number of institutional
owners (i.e., changes in disclosure would be associated with overall levels of institutional ownership).
另一个潜在的担忧是，代理顾问或其他组织，如 ISS 和 Investor Steward-ship Group (ISG) ，正在表达类
似于贝莱德信中所述的偏好，而且公司正在对这些组织发布的指导方针作出回应。我们不认为这种解
释能够完全解释我们的结果，原因有二。首先，我们没有发现这些组织在贝莱德信函发布的同时持续
更新他们的指导方针。第二，如果公司是对其他组织有关环境、社会和治理问题的指导意见作出反应，
而不是对贝莱德信函作出反应，那么披露相似性的变化不应因贝莱德所有权而具体发生变化，因为这
些组织代表着大量的机构所有者(即披露方面的变化将与机构所有权的总体水平相关)。
A.
Pawliczek
et al.
A.
Pawliczek
1102 et al.
Table 3 Descriptive
statistics
表 3 描述统计学
Panel A: Variable
Distributions
面板 a: 可变分布
Variable Mean P25 P50 P75
变量 N 刻薄 P25 P50 P75
DisclosureSimi −0.122
larity 7,900 −0.040 ー −0.032
披露相似性 7900 -0.040 0.122 -0.032 0.033
BlackRockBH 7,900
布莱克罗克 7900 0.634 0 1 1
BlackRock% 7,900
贝莱德 7900 5.500 3 5.5 8
PrivateEngagem
ent 7,900
私人参与 7900 0.366 0 0 1
StateStreetBH 7,900
州立大学 7900 0.157 0 0 0
VanguardBH 7,900
先锋 7900 0.566 0 1 1
StateStreet% 7,900
州立大街 7900 5.500 3 5.5 8
Vanguard% 7,900
先锋 7900 5.487 3 5.5 8
NumberBH 7,900
数字 7900 3.263 2 3 5
I
O
木
卫 7,900
一 7900 0.764 0.592 0.893 1
Item202 7,900
项目 202 7900 0.645 0 1 1
Item701 7,900
项目 701 7900 0.271 0 0 1
Item801 7,900
项目 801 7900 0.280 0 0 1
Number8Ks 7,900
数字 8k 7900 1.737 1 1 2
PriorDiscSimilar
ity 7,900
先验相似性 7900 0.523 0.446 0.556 0.625
MVE 7,900
MVE 7900 7.073 5.684 7.103 8.414
MTB 7,900
山地车 7900 3.292 1.184 1.954 3.753
Leverage 7,900
杠杆 7900 0.608 0.410 0.611 0.835
AnalystFollow 7,900
分析师跟进 7900 0.839 0.693 0.693 1.099
S&P500 7,900
标普 500 指数 7900 0.156 0 0 0
−0.010 −0.008
ROA 7,900 ーー
ROA 7900 0.010 0.008 0.003 0.016
Loss 7,900
损失 7900 0.334 0 0 1
−0.034
AbnRet 7,900 −0.005 −0.214 ー
阿布雷特 7900 - 0.005 -0.214 0.034 0.161
StdRet 7,900
斯德雷特 7900 0.025 0.015 0.021 0.031
Lawsuit 7,900
诉讼 7900 0.038 0 0 0
Panel B: Institutional Ownership
Correlation Table
B 组: 机构所有权相关表
(8)
Variables (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (八
变量 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) )
(1
) BlackRockB
(1 H
) 布莱克罗克 1
(2
)
(2 BlackRock% 0.830*
) 贝莱德 0.830 * 1
(3
) 0.517*
(3 StateStreetBH 0.346* 0.517
) 州立大学 0.346 * 1
(4 VanguardBH 0.724* 0.718* 0.390* 1
) 先锋 0.724 0.718 0.390
(4 * *
)
(5
) 0.848* 0.549*
(5 StateStreet% 0.810* 0.848 0.549 0.765*
) 州立大街 0.810 * * * 0.765 * 1
(6
) 0.841* 0.462* 0.858*
(6 Vanguard% 0.781* 0.841 0.462 0.868* 0.858
) 先锋 0.781 * * * 0.868 * * 1
(7 0.436
) 0.377* 0.200* 0.429* *
(7 NumberBH 0.407* 0.377 0.200 0.373* 0.429 0.436
) 数字 0.407 * * 0.373 * * * 1
(8
) 0.722
( 0.646* 0.289* 0.718* *
八 IO 0.648* 0.646 0.289 0.629* 0.718 0.722 0.679*
) 木卫一 0.648 * * * 0.629 * * * 0.679 * 1
Note: Table 3, Panel A provides descriptive statistics for the variables used in our primary analysis. All
variables are defined in Appendix 2. Our key variables of interest are DisclosureSimilarity, BlackRockBH, and
BlackRock%. DisclosureSimilarity is the cosine similarity of the text from BlackRock letter to the text from 8-
Ks filed 30 days subsequent to the letter minus the similarity score from the 90 days prior. BlackRockBH is an
indicator equal to one if BlackRock owns >5% of the firm’s outstanding shares, and BlackRock% is the decile
rank of BlackRock’s percentage ownership in the firm. Table 3, Panel B provides correlation coefficients for the
institutional ownership variables used throughout our analysis
注意: 表 3，面板 a 提供了我们主要分析中使用的变量的描述统计学。所有变量在附录 2 中定义。我们
感兴趣的关键变量是披露相似性，BlackRockBH 和 BlackRock% 。披露相似性是指贝莱德信件中的文本
与该信件 30 天后提交的 8-k 文本的余弦距离减去 90 天前的相似性得分。如果贝莱德持有该公司超过 5%
的流通股，那么 BlackRockBH 是一个等于 1 的指标，而 BlackRock% 是贝莱德持有该公司 10% 股份的
指标。表 3，面板 b 提供了整个分析过程中使用的机构所有权变量的相关系数
CEO’ letters
measures for firms’ prior disclosure attributes: namely, the total number of 8-Ks and the similarity
of those 8-Ks to the BlackRock letter, measured in the 90 days prior to the release of the
BlackRock letter (PriorNumber8Ks and PriorDiscSimilarity, respectively). We use a 90-day
window to ensure we are capturing a stable baseline for the change calculation. In section 5.2, we
find that our inferences do not change when we use alternative prior-period windows.
衡量公司先前披露属性的指标: 即 8-k 的总数以及这些 8-k 与贝莱德信函的相似性，在贝莱
德信函发布前 90 天内测量(分别为 PriorNumber8Ks 和 PriorDiscSimilarity)。我们使用一个
90 天的窗口，以确保我们捕捉到一个稳定的基线的变化计算。在第 5.2 节中，我们发现当
我们使用可选择的前期窗口时，我们的推论不会改变。
To control for systematic differences across firms’ information environments, including
the demand for information from multiple stakeholders, we include the logarithm of market
capitalization (MVE), market-to-book ratio (MTB), leverage ratio (Leverage), analyst
follow-ing (AnalystFollow), an indicator for membership in Standard & Poor’s 500 index
(S&P500), and litigation risk (Lawsuit). To control for financial performance, we include
return on assets (ROA), an indicator for loss firms (Loss), stock returns (AbnRet), and stock
return volatility (StdRet). We also include two-digit SIC industry and year fixed effects to
control for industry and time trends that affect firms’ disclosure decisions.
为了控制企业信息环境中的系统性差异，包括来自多个利益相关者的信息需求，我
们包括市值对数 (MVE) 、市净率 (MTB) 、杠杆比率 (Leverage) 、分析师跟踪
(AnalystFollow)、标准普尔 500 指数(s & p 500)成份股指标和诉讼风险(Lawsuit)。为了
控制财务业绩，我们包括资产回报率 (ROA) 、损失公司指标 (Loss) 、股票回报率
(AbnRet)和股票回报波动率(StdRet)。我们还包括两位数的 SIC 行业和年度固定效应，
以控制影响公司披露决策的行业和时间趋势。
Table 4 reports the results of this estimation. In columns (1) and (2), we find that the
change in DisclosureSimilarity is significantly higher in the 30 days after the BlackRock
letter is issued for BlackRock-owned firms: the coefficient of interest, β1, is positive
and statistically different from zero, whether we estimate our model using
BlackRockBH (p < 0.10) or BlackRock% (p < 0.05). If the results are caused by the
types of firms that large institutional investors tend to own, then we expect disclosure
behavior after the release of the BlackRock letter to be similarly affected by Vanguard
and State Street ownership. However, we do not find a significant association between
our measure of disclosure similarity with the BlackRock letter and either Vanguard or
State Street ownership.17 This result helps to alleviate the concern that our main results
are an artifact of portfolio firms’ general tendency to discuss the topics included in the
letters (i.e., because the topics covered are popular or of general interest). 18
表 4 报告了这一估计的结果。在第(1)和(2)栏中，我们发现无论我们使用
BlackRockBH (p < 0.10) 还是 BlackRock% (p < 0.05) 来估计我们的模型，在
BlackRock 信函发出后的 30 天内，对于 BlackRock 所有的公司来说，信息披露相
似性的变化是显著高的: 无论我们使用 BlackRockBH (p < 0.10)还是 BlackRock% (p
< 0.05)来估计我们的模型，利息系数 β1 都是正的，并且统计学上不同于零。如果
结果是由大型机构投资者倾向于拥有的公司类型造成的，那么我们预计贝莱德信
函发布后的披露行为也会受到 Vanguard 和道富银行所有权的类似影响。然而，我
们并未发现我们的披露相似性指标与先锋或道富的所有权之间存在显著联系。17
这一结果有助于缓解人们的担忧，即我们的主要结果是投资组合公司总体倾向于
讨论信中所包含的主题(即因为所涉及的主题受欢迎或具有普遍兴趣)
While the evidence in columns (1) and (2) is consistent with firms altering their disclosures in
response to BlackRock’s public engagement (as conveyed in the letters), it is also consistent with
at least one other explanation. Specifically, it is possible that changes in disclosure similarity
around the letter release date can be attributed to private engagement between BlackRock and
portfolio firms. While we do not expect private engagement activities to be concentrated in the
short window around the letter release, private engagement firms might increase their discussion
of the topics outlined in the letter over time, even if the public engagement letter had never been
released. To investigate this possibility, we utilize a novel data set on BlackRock’s private
engagements, which we hand collect from BlackRock’s Stewardship Annual Report.19 The data
are available beginning in BlackRock’s
尽管第(1)和(2)栏中的证据与公司为了回应贝莱德的公众参与而改变其披露(如信中所述)
是一致的，但它也至少与另一种解释是一致的。具体来说，信件发布日期前后披露相似性
的变化可能归因于贝莱德和投资组合公司之间的私人接触。虽然我们不希望私人参与活动
集中在信件发布前后的短时间内，但私人参与公司可能会随着时间的推移增加对信中概述
的主题的讨论，即使公众参与信从未发布过。为了研究这种可能性，我们利用了一组关于
贝莱德私人业务的新数据，这些数据是我们从贝莱德的《管理年度报告》中手工收集的
17 Several of the institutional ownership measures are highly correlated with our BlackRock ownership
measures (see Table 3, Panel B). We confirm that all VIF factors are below 10 in our main analysis, mitigating
一些机构所有权措施与我们的贝莱德所有权措施高度相关(见表 3，面板 b)。我们证实，在我们的主要
分析中，所有 VIF 因素都低于 10，减轻了
multicollinearity concerns (Kennedy 2008). The results remain unchanged when we drop any of the
institutional ownership variables, including State Street (StateStreetBH, StateStreet%) and Vanguard
(VanguardBH, Vanguard%) variables, as well as NumberBH and IO.
多重共线性问题(Kennedy 2008)。当我们去掉任何机构所有权变量，包括道富银行(道富银行，道
富银行%)和先锋银行(先锋银行，先锋银行%)变量，以及 NumberBH 和 IO 时，结果保持不变。
18 To help alleviate concerns that we document trends in public sentiment, we also re-estimate equation (1)
using alternative windows to calculate the dependent variable. Specifically, we do not find that either of the
为了减轻对我们记录公众情绪趋势的担忧，我们也使用其他窗口重新估计方程(1)来计算因变量。具体
来说，我们没有发现
BlackRock ownership measures is correlated with an increase in similarity to the letter in either the 30
days immediately preceding the letter (i.e. [−30,-1]) or the 30-day window prior to that ([−60,-30]). This
further alleviates this endogeneity concern (untabulated).
贝莱德的所有权衡量标准与信件相似度的增加有关，无论是在信件发出之前的 30 天(即[-30,-1]) ，
还是在信件发出之前的 30 天窗口([-60,-30])。这进一步缓解了这种内生性担忧(未列表)。
19 The 2018 Stewardship Annual Report can be found here: https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/literature/
publication/ blk-annual-stewardship-report-2018.pdf. The 2019 and 2020 Stewardship Annual Reports can be
found here: https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/about-us/investment-stewardship#guidelines.
2018 年度管理报告可以在这里找到 : https://www.blackrock. com/corporate/literature/publication/blk-
Annual-Stewardship-Report-2018.pdf 。 2019 年和 2020 年的管理年报可以在这里找到 :
https://www.blackrock. com/corporate/about-us/investment-Stewardship # guidelines。
A.
Pawliczek
et al.
A.
Pawliczek
1104 et al.
Table 4 Disclosure response to
BlackRock letters
表 4 对贝莱德信函的披露答复
DisclosureSimil
DEPVAR = arity
DEPVAR = 披露相似性
Pred
?
Pred (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
？ (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
BlackRock
Variables:
贝莱德变量:
BlackRockBH (+) 0.009* 0.009* 0.009*
布莱克罗克 (+) 0.009 * 0.009 * 0.009 *
(1.920) (1.912) (1.696)
(1.920) (1.912) (1.696)
BlackRock% (+) 0.003** 0.003** 0.003**
贝莱德 (+) 003 * * 003 * * 003 * *
(2.566) (2.564) (2.155)
(2.566) (2.564) (2.155)
PrivateEngage
ment
私人参与 0.000 0.000
(0.009) (0.106)
(0.009) (0.106)
Other IO:
其他法律事务
主任:
StateStreetBH −0.006 −0.006 −0.008
州立大学 0.006 0.006 ー0.008
(−1.112
) (−0.865)
(- (−1.110) (ー
1.112) (- 1.110) 0.865)
VanguardBH −0.002 −0.002 −0.004
先锋 - 0.002 - 0.002 0.004
(−0.353 (−0.353) (−0.796)
) (- 0.353) (- 0.796)
(-
0.353)
StateStreet% −0.002 −0.002 −0.003
州立大街 - 0.002 - 0.002 0.003
(−1.485
)
(−1.291) (−1.292) (ー
(- 1.291) (- 1.292) 1.485)
Vanguard% −0.001 −0.002 −0.001
先锋 -0.001 - 0.002 -0.001
(−0.750
(−1.286) )
(−1.281) (ー (-
(- 1.281) 1.286) 0.750)
NumberBH
数字 0.001 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.001 0.000
(0.643) (0.495) (0.643) (0.496) (0.436) (0.272)
(0.643) (0.495) (0.643) (0.496) (0.436) (0.272)
IO −0.012 −0.009 −0.012 −0.009 −0.005 −0.002
木卫一ー0.012 -0.009 ー0.012 -0.009 - 0.005 - 0.002
(−1.250 (−0.183
) (−1.250) (−0.467) )
(ー (−0.909) (ー (−0.911) (ー (-
1.250) (- 0.909) 1.250) (- 0.911) 0.467) 0.183)
8-K Controls:
8-K 控制:
−0.034* −0.034* −0.034* −0.034* −0.025* −0.025*
** ** ** ** ** **
Item202 - 0.034 - 0.034 * - 0.034 * - 0.034 * 0.025 美 0.025 美
项目 202 *** ** ** ** 元元
(−10.03 (−10.088) (−10.091 (−6.185
6) (−10.037) ) )
(- (- 10.088)(- (ー (−6.120) (-
10.036) 10.037) 10.091) (- 6.120) 6.185)
Item701
项目 701 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.002 0.005 0.005
(0.446) (0.417) (0.446) (0.417) (1.115) (1.101)
(0.446) (0.417) (0.446) (0.417) (1.115) (1.101)
0.017** 0.017**
0.020** 0.020** 0.020** * *
Item801 0.020*** * * * 0.017 * 0.017 *
项目 801 0.020 0.020 0.020 0.020 * *
(5.673) (5.736) (5.672) (5.737) (4.018) (4.084)
(5.673) (5.736) (5.672) (5.737) (4.018) (4.084)
Number8Ks 0.034*** 0.034** 0.034** 0.034** 0.030** 0.030**
数字 8k 0.034 * * * * * * *
* 0.034 * 0.034 * 0.034 * 030 年 9 030 年
** ** * * 月 30 日 9 月 30
日
(14.852
)
(21.113) (21.101) (21.107) (21.095) (14.832) (14.852
(21.113) (21.101) (21.107) (21.095) (14.832) )
−0.008* −0.008* −0.008* −0.008* −0.007* −0.007*
PriorNumber8 ** ** ** ** ** **
Ks - 0.008 - 0.008 * - 0.008 * - 0.008 * - 0.007 * - 0.007
先验数字 8k *** ** ** ** ** ***
(−9.869 (−7.221
) (−9.949) (−9.949) )
(- (ー (−9.868) (ー (−7.202) (-
9.869) 9.949) (- 9.868) 9.949) (- 7.202) 7.221)
−0.658* −0.658* −0.658* −0.658* −0.658* −0.658*
PriorDiscSimi ** ** ** ** ** **
larity - 0.658 - 0.658 - 0.658 - 0.658 - 0.658 - 0.658
先验相似性美元美元美元美元美元美元
(−44.30 (−44.338 (−33.155 (−33.16
5) (−44.298) ) ) 8)
(ー (−44.340) (ー (- (-
44.305) - 44.298)-44.340 44.338) 33.155) 33.168)
Firm
Characterisitcs:
公司特点:
−0.009* −0.009* −0.009* −0.009* −0.012* −0.011*
** ** ** ** ** **
MVE - 0.009 - 0.009 * - 0.009 * - 0.009 * 0.012 美 - 0.011
MVE *** ** ** ** 元 ***
(−6.401 (−6.563
) (−5.815) )
(- (−5.855) (−6.332) (ー (−6.956) (ー
6.401) (- 5.855) (- 6.332) 5.815) (- 6.956) 6.563)
MTB
山地车 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
(0.299) (0.368) (0.299) (0.367) (1.093) (1.102)
(0.299) (0.368) (0.299) (0.367) (1.093) (1.102)
Leverage −0.003 −0.002 −0.003 −0.002
杠杆 0.003 - 0.002 0.003 - 0.002 0.002 0.003
(−0.562
) (−0.404) (−0.403)
(- (ー (−0.562) (ー (0.324) (0.407)
0.562) 0.404) (- 0.562) 0.403) (0.324) (0.407)
件的影响 1105
Table 4 (continued)
表 4(续)
DisclosureSimil
DEPVAR = arity
Pred
?
Pred (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
？ (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
AnalystFollow −0.004 −0.004 −0.004 −0.004 −0.008* −0.007
分析师跟进 0.004 0.004 0.004 0.004 - 0.008 * - 0.007
(−1.242
) (−1.634)
(- (−1.121) (−1.242) (−1.120) (−1.763) (ー
1.242) ー1.121) (- 1.242) ー1.120) (- 1.763) 1.634)
0.013**
S&P500 0.013 * 0.013* 0.019* 0.023**
标普 500 指数 0.011 * 0.011 013 * 0.019 * 023 * *
(1.640) (1.962) (1.628) (1.938) (1.675) (2.013)
(1.640) (1.962) (1.628) (1.938) (1.675) (2.013)
ROA
ROA 0.038 0.036 0.038 0.036 0.012 0.011
(1.455) (1.381) (1.454) (1.379) (0.417) (0.386)
(1.455) (1.381) (1.454) (1.379) (0.417) (0.386)
Loss
损失 0.005 0.005 0.005 0.005 0.001 0.001
(1.313) (1.258) (1.313) (1.253) (0.306) (0.226)
(1.313) (1.258) (1.313) (1.253) (0.306) (0.226)
0.011**
*
AbnRet 0.007* 0.007* 0.007* 0.007* 0.011*** 0.011 *
阿布雷特 0.007 * 0.007 * 0.007 * 0.007 * 0.011 * * *
(1.911) (1.885) (1.908) (1.884) (2.850) (2.852)
(1.911) (1.885) (1.908) (1.884) (2.850) (2.852)
−0.276* −0.279*
StdRet −0.126 −0.130 −0.126 −0.130 ー0.276 - 0.279
斯德雷特ー0.126 -0.130 ー0.126 -0.130 * *
(−0.863
) (−1.684)
(- (−0.889) (−0.863) (−0.891) (ー (−1.700)
0.863) (- 0.889) (- 0.863) (- 0.891) 1.684) (- 1.700)
Lawsuit −0.004 −0.004 −0.004 −0.004 −0.003 −0.003
诉讼 0.004 0.004 0.004 0.004 0.003 0.003
(−0.558
) (−0.492) (−0.490) (−0.284)
(- (ー (−0.557) (ー (−0.336) (ー
0.558) 0.492) (- 0.557) 0.490) (- 0.336) 0.284)
Industry/Year FE
行业/年份 FE Y Y Y Y Y Y
Observations 7,900 7,900 7,900 7,900 5,009 5,009
观察 7900 7900 7900 7900 5,009 5,009
Adj. R-squared
R 平方 0.403 0.404 0.403 0.404 0.396 0.397
Note: Table 4 contains results from OLS regressions of DisclosureSimilarity on BlackRock ownership
measures (BlackRockBH and BlackRock%) and controls. DisclosureSimilarity is the cosine similarity of
the text from the BlackRock letter to the text from the 8-Ks filed 30 days subsequent to the letter minus
the similarity score from the 90 days prior. BlackRockBH is an indicator equal to one if BlackRock
owns >5% of the firm’s outstanding shares, and BlackRock% is the decile rank of BlackRock’s
percentage ownership in the firm. All remaining variables are defined in Appendix 2. In columns (3) and
(4), we include an additional control for whether BlackRock privately engaged with the firm in any of its
fiscal years spanning 2017–2020 (PrivateEngagement), and in columns (5) and (6) we exclude firms
with PrivateEngagement = 1. t-statistics are in parentheses, and ***, **, and * represent significance
levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively (two-tailed). Standard errors are clustered at the firm level
注: 表 4 包含了关于贝莱德所有权指标(BlackRockBH 和 BlackRock%)和控制项的披露相似性的
OLS 回归结果。披露相似性是指贝莱德信函中的文本与该信函 30 天后提交的 8-k 文本的余弦距
离减去 90 天前的相似性得分。如果贝莱德持有该公司超过 5% 的流通股，那么 BlackRockBH 是
一个等于 1 的指标，而 BlackRock% 是贝莱德持有该公司 10% 股份的指标。所有剩余的变量在附
录 2 中定义。在第(3)和(4)栏中，我们包括了一个额外的控制条件，以判断 BlackRock 是否在
2017-2020 年的任何一个财政年度私下与公司进行了合作(private engagement) ，在第(5)和(6)栏中，
我们排除了私下合作 = 1 的公司。T 统计量在括号内，* * * 、 * * 和 * 分别表示 1% 、5% 和 10%
的显著性水平(双尾)。标准错误集中在公司层面
2018 fiscal year, which covers a subset of our sample period. Thus, we construct a
firm-level variable with the available data. PrivateEngagement is equal to one if
BlackRock privately engages with the firm in any of BlackRock’s three fiscal years
from 2018 to 2020, zero otherwise.20
2018 财政年度，涵盖样本期间的一部分。因此，我们用可用的数据构造了一
个企业层面的变量。如果贝莱德在 2018 年至 2020 年的三个财政年度中的任
何一个年度与公司进行私下接触，则私下接触等于 1，否则为 0
To corroborate our conclusion that observed differences in disclosure for BlackRock-owned
firms are a function of the public demands laid out in BlackRock’s annual letter, we repeat the
tests from Table 4, columns (1) and (2). We include an additional control for private
为了证实我们的结论，即观察到的贝莱德拥有的公司在披露方面的差异是贝莱德年度信
函中列出的公众要求的一个函数，我们重复表 4 第(1)和(2)栏中的测试。我们包括了对私有
企业的额外控制
20We confirm that all results are also robust to including an alternative measure for instances of private
engagement, set equal to one if BlackRock engages in all three years, zero otherwise. We also find that
our results are generally robust to excluding PrivateEngagement firms. To provide more detail on which
firms BlackRock engages with, we present sample descriptives split by PrivateEngagement in Appendix
6. BlackRock appears to engage with larger firms with greater BlackRock ownership.
我们确认，所有的结果都强有力地包括了一个针对私人参与实例的替代措施，如果贝莱德全部参
与三年，则设置为 1，否则为 0。我们还发现，我们的结果在排除私人参与公司方面总体上是稳
健的。为了提供更多关于贝莱德与哪些公司合作的细节，我们在附录 6 中提供了被私人参与分割
的样本描述。贝莱德似乎与更大的贝莱德所有权的大公司进行合作。
Pawliczek et al.
engagement (PrivateEngagement) in columns (3) and (4) and exclude the firms with
which BlackRock privately engages in columns (5) and (6). 21 The positive
coefficients on BlackRockBH and BlackRock% remain and are of the same
magnitude across all specifica-tions. Firms for which BlackRock is a blockholder
have a 22% more positive change in DisclosureSimilarity (or equivalently a 2%
increase in the level of DisclosureSimilarity) relative to the sample mean. 22
在第(3)和(4)栏中订立(私人订立) ，并排除与贝莱德私下订立(5)和(6)栏的公司。
21. 贝莱德和贝莱德% 的正系数在所有规范中保持不变，并且具有相同的数量
级。与样本平均值相比，贝莱德为大股东的公司在信息披露相似性方面有 22%
的正变化(或者相当于信息披露相似性水平上升 2%)
Taken together, the evidence in Table 4 is consistent with portfolio firms responding
specifically to BlackRock’s broad-based public engagement. Moreover, it does not
appear that changes in disclosure similarity around the letter release date are explained
by ongoing private engagements between BlackRock and portfolio firms. However,
changes in disclo-sure may be boilerplate or otherwise uninformative to BlackRock, or
they may indicate that the firm does not support BlackRock’s preferred strategies. To
evaluate these possibilities, in the next section we investigate whether BlackRock values
firms’ disclosure responses by examining disciplinary action by BlackRock conditional
on the change in firms’ post-letter disclosures.
综上所述，表 4 中的证据与专门针对贝莱德广泛的公众参与的投资组合公司是
一致的。此外，信件发布日期前后披露相似性的变化似乎并不能用贝莱德和投资
组合公司之间持续的私人合作来解释。然而，披露方面的变化可能只是样板文件，
或者对贝莱德没有任何帮助，或者这些变化可能表明公司不支持贝莱德偏爱的策
略。为了评估这些可能性，在下一节中，我们通过研究以公司信后披露的变化为
条件的贝莱德纪律处分，来调查贝莱德是否重视公司的披露回应。
4.2 Voting outcomes for firms responding through disclosure

4.2 通过披露作出回应的公司的投票结果
Prior research indicates that passive investors may escalate disciplinary action when they believe
portfolio firms’ practices are not sufficiently aligned with their principles and when efforts at
engagement produce insufficient responses. Such escalation often includes voting in opposition to
management at shareholder meetings (Appel et al. 2016). To the extent that our measure of
disclosure similarity captures (1) information that is valuable to BlackRock and/or
先前的研究表明，当被动投资者认为投资组合公司的做法与其原则不够一致，以及参与努
力没有产生足够的反应时，他们可能会升级惩戒行动。这种升级通常包括在股东大会上投
票反对管理层(Appel 等，2016)。在某种程度上，我们的披露相似性措施捕捉到(1)对贝莱德
和/或
(2) firms’ efforts to align with BlackRock’s policy recommendations (as expressed in the
letter), we expect firms that provide more similar disclosure to be less likely to face
BlackRock opposition to management’s recommendations on proposals at shareholder
meetings. BlackRock specifically states in its Global Corporate Governance and Engagement
Principles that when it believes management is not effectively addressing a material issue, it
may reflect such concern by supporting shareholder proposals, including proposals related to
environmental and social (ES) factors (BlackRock 2020). In contrast, if firms acknowledge
letter-related issues without quantifying the impact of environmental and regulatory changes
and/or detailing strategic responses, then changes in disclosure may not affect BlackRock’s
assessment of the firm. It is also possible that portfolio firms are disclosing opposition to
BlackRock’s recommendation. If that is the case, then we expect changes in disclosure to
lead to greater BlackRock opposition to management at shareholder meetings.
公司努力与贝莱德的政策建议保持一致(如信中所述) ，我们预计提供更多类似信息披
露的公司不太可能在股东大会上面临贝莱德对管理层建议的反对。贝莱德在其《全球
公司治理和参与原则》(Global Corporate Governance and Engagement Principles)中明确
指出，当贝莱德认为管理层没有有效解决一个重大问题时，它可以通过支持股东提议，
包括与环境和社会因素有关的提议，来反映这种关切(BlackRock 2020)。相比之下，如
果公司承认与信件有关的问题，但没有量化环境和监管变化的影响，也没有详细说明
战略反应，那么披露方面的变化可能不会影响贝莱德对公司的评估。投资组合公司也
有可能公开反对贝莱德的建议。如果是这样的话，那么我们预计披露方面的变化将导
致贝莱德在股东大会上对管理层的更大反对。
21
The insignificant coefficients on PrivateEngagement in columns (3) and (4) do not necessarily imply that
BlackRock’s private engagements do not affect firm disclosure. Since private engagements take place
throughout the year, the majority of changes in disclosure resulting from private engagement are unlikely to be
concentrated in the 30-day window after the release of the letter (i.e., if private engagement takes place
第(3)和第(4)栏中私人参与的微不足道的系数并不一定意味着贝莱德的私人参与不会影响公司的信息披
露。由于私人协约全年都在进行，因此，由私人协约引起的披露方面的大部分变化不大可能集中在信
件发布后的 30 天窗口期内(即如果进行了私人协约)
either during or before the pre-period or after the post-period, any effect is unlikely to be captured in
DisclosureSimilarity). Further, we do not have information about the topics of private engagements with
specific firms and the degree to which they align with the topics in the letter. If some private engagements relate
primarily to firm-specific issues or other issues outside the scope of the letter, we would not expect private
engagement to increase disclosure similarity to the letter.
无论是在前期或前期或后期，任何影响都不太可能在披露相似性中体现出来)。此外，我们没有关于与
特定公司的私人接触的主题的信息，以及他们在多大程度上符合信中的主题。如果一些私人约定主要
涉及公司特定问题或信函范围以外的其他问题，我们不会期望私人约定增加披露与信函的相似性。
22 In untabulated analysis, we examine changes in disclosure similarity over two alternative 30-day
windows (i.e., [30,60] and [60,90]) and do not observe significant variation in disclosure similarity
during these windows. This is consistent with documenting a response to the letter specifically, rather
than a general trend in firms’ disclosures.
在非表格分析中，我们研究了在两个不同的 30 天窗口(即[30,60]和[60,90])中披露相似性的变化，
并没有观察到在这些窗口期间披露相似性的显著变化。这与具体记录对信件的回复是一致的，而
不是公司披露的一般趋势。
CEO’ letters
To investigate this question, we obtain data on shareholder proposals, including

ES proposals, managements’ recommendations for those proposals, and BlackRock
voting data from ISS Voting Analytics. The database provides details on whether
BlackRock voted for or against each proposal in each firm meeting and provides
management’s recommendation for each proposal as reported in the firm’s proxy
statement. For this analysis, BlackRock opposition is defined as voting against (for)
a shareholder proposal supported (opposed) by management.
为了研究这个问题，我们从 ISS Voting Analytics 获得了有关股东提议的数
据，包括 ES 提议、管理层对这些提议的建议以及贝莱德的投票数据。该数据
库提供了贝莱德在每次公司会议上对每项提议投赞成票还是反对票的详细信
息，并提供了公司委托书中报告的每项提议的管理层建议。对于这种分析，
贝莱德的反对被定义为投票反对(赞成)股东提案支持(反对)的管理层。
Because BlackRock references a broad set of issues, including governance issues,
in its annual letter, we consider BlackRock’s opposition to all shareholder proposals
(i.e., proposals with an ISSAgendaItemID beginning with S) during the firm’s
annual shareholder meeting (BlackRock 2020; ISS 2019).23 Given that shareholder
voting is a key mechanism of firm governance, many proposals relate to issues of
firm governance (e.g., staggered board, independent board chair, adopt or amend
proxy access rights). This set also includes proposals related to environmental and
social issues.
由于贝莱德在其年度信函中提到了一系列广泛的问题，包括治理问题，我
们认为贝莱德在公司年度股东大会(BlackRock 2020; ISS 2019)期间反对所有股
东提案(即以 s 开头的 issagenda 项目提案)。23 鉴于股东表决是公司治理的一
个关键机制，许多提案涉及公司治理问题(例如交错董事会、独立董事会主席、
采纳或修改代理进入权)。这一组还包括与环境和社会问题相关的提案。
Motivated by the recent inclusion of ES issues in BlackRock’s annual letter, we also
separately identify the subset of shareholder proposals related to these types of issues.
Flammer (2015) and Cao, Liang, and Zhan (2019) identify ES-related proposals by ISS
resolution type SRI, which consists of 52 subcategories. He et al. (2020) further refine
the definition of ES-related proposals by analyzing the proposal descriptions (ItemDesc)
to check for potential inconsistencies and data errors, and identify 55 unique
categories.24 When we use the categories from He et al. 2020, our final sample of
shareholder proposals on which BlackRock voted within our sample firm-years contains
33 of the 55 categories. Table 5, Panel A provides descriptive statistics on the categories
included in our analysis, as well as the rate of BlackRock opposition across each of
these categories. The top five ES categories in our sample are Greenhouse Gas (GHG)
Emissions, Climate Change, Link Executive Pay to Social Criteria, Gender Pay Gap,
and Social Proposal. BlackRock opposed our sample firms’ management on these
proposals 3.5%, 10.5%, 1.0%, 6.2%, and 2.7% of the time, respectively.
由于最近在贝莱德的年度信函中纳入了 ES 问题，我们也分别确定了与这些类
型的问题相关的股东建议的子集。Flammer (2015)和 Cao，Liang，和 Zhan (2019)
通过 ISS 解决方案类型 SRI 确定了与 es 相关的提案，其中包括 52 个子类别。He
等人(2020)通过分析提案描述(ItemDesc)来检查潜在的不一致性和数据错误，进一
步完善了与 es 相关的提案的定义，并确定了 55 个独特的类别。表 5，面板 a 提
供了包括在我们的分析中的类别的描述统计学，以及每个类别的贝莱德反对率。
在我们的样本中，排名前五的 ES 类别分别是: 温室气体排放、气候变化、将高管
薪酬与社会标准联系起来、性别薪酬差距和社会建议。贝莱德反对我们样本公司
管理层这些建议的比例分别为 3.5% 、10.5% 、1.0% 、6.2% 和 2.7% 。
We are interested in whether BlackRock opposes managements’ recommendations. Thus,
we evaluate whether a firm’s disclosure response is associated with the likelihood that
BlackRock opposes management at shareholder meetings after the letter and subsequent firm
disclosure. We do this by estimating the following linear probability model:
我们感兴趣的是，贝莱德是否反对管理层的建议。因此，我们评估一家公司的信息
披露回应是否与贝莱德在股东大会上反对管理层的可能性有关，在信件和随后的公司
信息披露之后。我们通过估计以下线性概率模型来做到这一点:
23
We exclude management proposals (M code) because the majority of them either relate to routine business
(e.g., authorizing additional shares) or represent director elections. In the case of most routine business, there is
not a clear connection to the topics discussed in the letters. In the case of director elections, BlackRock’s
decision to vote against the directors recommended by management (as stated in its US Proxy Voting
Guidelines) relates to several personal attributes of the director (e.g., independence, number of other board seats)
that are unrelated to the firms’ disclosure choices. Additionally, voting against directors is often considered an
escalation tactic that is resorted to only if a firm’s initial response to shareholder concerns is insufficient. For
example, ISS recommends voting against directors if the board does not respond to a shareholder proposal that
received majority support in the prior year. Thus, we expect that votes against directors are unlikely to be
related to the firm’s response to the letter in the time window in our sample (i.e., annual meetings that are
approximately five months after the letter for calendar-year-end firms).
我们排除管理建议(m 代码) ，因为它们中的大多数要么涉及日常业务(例如，授权额外股份) ，要么代表
董事选举。在大多数日常业务中，与信中讨论的话题没有明确的联系。就董事选举而言，贝莱德投票
反对管理层推荐的董事的决定(如其美国代理投票指引所述) ，涉及董事的若干个人属性(例如独立性、
其他董事会席位的数目) ，而这些属性与公司的披露选择无关。此外，投票反对董事通常被认为是一种
升级策略，只有在公司对股东关注的最初反应不够充分时才会采用。例如，ISS 建议，如果董事会没有
回应股东的提议，在前一年获得大多数支持，投票反对董事会。因此，我们预计，投票反对董事不太
可能与公司在我们样本中的时间窗口内对信件的回应有关(也就是说，年终公司的年度会议大约在信件
发出后 5 个月)。
24He et al. (2020) eliminate 10 categories that do not have a clear association with ES or appear to be a
result of data errors, and identify 13 additional ES-related categories.
He 等人(2020 年)删除了 10 个与 ES 没有明确关联或似乎是数据错误造成的类别，并确定了另外
13 个与 ES 相关的类别。
Table 5 BlackRock voting response to disclosures 第四季第
表 5 贝莱德对披露的投票反应
四集
Panel A: Descriptive Statistics S0731
A 组: 描述统计学第七季第
Pct BlackRock 十一集
ISS ItemID Oppose N BlackRock N BlackRock S0777
国际空间站 Description per He et al. 2020 Pct BlackRock 反 Support Oppose 第七季第
项目 2020 年 N 对 N 贝莱德支持黑岩反对集
S0743 S0781
第七季第三 GHG Emissions 第七季第
1,284 1,239
集温室气体排放 1284 0.035 1,239 45
集
S0742 Climate Change 1,273 1,139 S0812
S0742 气候变化 1,273 0.105 1,139 134
第八季第
S0510 二集
第五季第十 Link Executive Pay to Social Criteria 1,267 1,255 S0206
集将行政人员薪酬与社会标准联系起来 1,267 0.009 1,255 12
第二季第
S0817 集
第八季第十 Gender Pay Gap 1,265 1,187 S0779
七集性别薪酬差距 1,265 0.062 1,187 78
第七季第
S0999 Social Proposal 1,224 1,191 集
S0999 社会建议 1224 0.027 1,191 33 S0738
S0352 第七季第
第三季第二 Company Specific-Governance Related 十八集
集特定公司-治理相关 659 0.049 627 32 S0224
S0414 Improve Human Rights Standards or 658 0.040 632 26 第二季第
1108
集获提名的董事须具备环境及社会事务
资格
S0412
第四季第十 Human Rights Risk Assessment
二集人权风险评估 296 0.014 292 4
Company-Specific -- Shareholder
S0810 Miscellaneous
S0810 公司专题——股东杂项 275 0.153 233 42
S0911
第九季第 Anti-Social Proposal
11 集反社会建议 194 0.000 194 0
S0205 Establish Other Governance Board
第二季第五 Committee
集成立其他管治委员会委员会 176 0.023 172 4
S0423
第四季第二 Operations in High Risk Countries
十三集高风险国家的业务 169 0.024 165 4
S0710
第七季第十 Facility Safety
集设施安全 137 0.022 134 3
et al.
Pawliczek
A.
S0815 Labor Issues - Discrimination and
第八季第十 Miscellaneous
五集劳工问题-歧视及杂项 126 0.032 122 4
Table 5 (continued) S0725
表 5(续)
第七季第
Animal Welfare Panel B:
S0890
S0890 动物福利 B 组: 多变
111 0.045 106 5
S0745 Climate Change Action
第七季第五集气候变化行动 99 0.020 97 2
S0744 Hydraulic Fracturing
第七季第四集水力压裂 97 0.000 97 0 DEPVAR
S0727 Review Foreign Military Sales DEPVAR
第七季第 27 集审查国外军事销售 76 0.000 76 0
S0733 Reduce Tobacco Harm to Health
第七季第三集减少烟草对健康的危害 58 0.000 58 0 Response
S0891 Animal Testing Variables
S0891 动物实验 50 0.000 50 0 响应变量
S0736 Genetically Modified Organisms Disclosu
第七季第三十 (GMO) ilarity
六集转基因生物(GMO) 48 0.000 48 0 披露相似
S0735
第七季第三十 Health Care - Related
五集健康护理相关 47 0.064 44 3 PrivateEn
Review Drug Pricing or ment
S0729 Distribution 私人参与
第七季第 29 集审查药品定价或分销 45 0.089 41 4
Data Security, Privacy, and
S0427 Internet Issues Proposal
第四季第 27 集数据安全、隐私和互联网问题 35 0.086 32 3
Variables
信件的影响
一种新的声音: 贝莱德“亲爱的首席执行官”
建议变量:
BlackRockOpp
osePY
BlackRockOpp 0.162*** 0.205***
osePY 0.162 0.205 美元
(6.178) (5.353)
(6.178) (5.353)
Nproposals 0.010** 0.006***
建议书 0.010 * * 0.006 * *
1109
Table 5 (continued) MVE
表 5(续)
(2.338) (2.811)
(2.338) (2.811) MTB
PctShareholder 2.185*** 山地车
公司股东 2.185 * * * 0.106
(11.007) (1.613)
(11.007) (1.613) Cash
PctEnvSocial 3.737*** 现金
PctEnvSocial 0.365 3.737 * * *
(0.818) (8.257)
(0.818) (8.257) ROA
Firm Characteristics: ROA
公司特点:
BlackRockOwn −0.004 −0.002
黑石镇 Sales
0.004 - 0.002
(−1.487) (−1.217) 销售额
(- 1.487) (- 1.217)
PctPassive −0.009 −0.003
PctPassive 被动 AbnRet
-0.009 0.003
(−0.415) (−0.283) 阿布雷特
(- 0.415) (- 0.283)
IO −0.047*** −0.008
木卫一 0.047 美元ー0.008
(−3.417) (−0.916)
(- 3.417) (- 0.916)
MVE 0.021*** 0.005***
A.
Pawliczek
et al.
A.
Pawliczek
1110 et al.
信件的影响
一种新的声音: 贝莱德“亲爱的首席执行官”
Table 5 (continued)
表 5(续)
(−1.188) (−0.461)
(- 1.188) (- 0.461)
StdRet −0.369 −0.010
斯德雷特 -0.369 ー0.010
(−1.517) (−0.072)
(- 1.517) (- 0.072)
Industry/Year
FE
行业/年份 FE Y Y
Observations 5,583 5,583
观察 5,583 5,583
Adj. R-squared
R 平方 0.467 0.488
Note: Table 5 contains the results from our voting analysis. Panel A contains the 33 (of 55) environmental and social proposal categories BlackRock voted on during our sample period,
from the ISS database. We include descriptives on the number of instances BlackRock voted and how frequently it opposed management on these topics. Panel B contains the results of
the linear probability model regressions of BlackRockOppose (an indicator equal to one if BlackRock voted opposite management) and BlackRockOpposeES (an indicator equal to one if
BlackRock voted opposite management on Environmental and Social topics) on DisclosureSimilarity and controls. DisclosureSimilarity is the cosine similarity of the text from the
BlackRock letter to the text from the 8-Ks filed 30 days subsequent to the letter, minus the similarity score from the 90 days prior. All other variables are defined in Appendix 2. t-
statistics are in parentheses, and ***, **, and * represent significance levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively (two-tailed). Standard errors are clustered at the firm level
注意: 表 5 包含了我们投票分析的结果。面板 a 包含了来自 ISS 数据库的贝莱德在样本期间投票表决的 33 个(55 个)环境和社会建议类别。我们包括了关于 BlackRock 投票的
实例数量以及它在这些问题上反对管理的频率的描述。面板 b 包含 BlackRockOppose (如果 BlackRock 投票反对管理层，该指标等于 1)和 BlackRockOpposeES (如果
BlackRock 投票反对管理层，该指标等于 1)关于披露相似性和控制的线性概率模型回归结果。披露相似性是指贝莱德信件中的文本与该信件 30 天后提交的 8-k 文本的余弦
距离，减去 90 天前的相似性得分。所有其他变量在附录 2 中定义。T 统计量在括号内，* * * 、 * * 和 * 分别表示 1% 、5% 和 10% 的显著性水平(双尾)。标准错误集中在公
司层面
1111
1112 a 帕利切克等人。
BlackRock Oppose ¼ α þ β1Disclosure Similarity þ ∑δ

Measurei;t Controlsi;t
贝莱德反对 1 -- 4 α + β1 披露相似性度量 ∑ δ 控制 si; t
þ γFE þ ε ð2Þ
γFE þ ε ー2þ
The dependent variable, BlackRockOppose, represents one of two measures of
BlackRock opposition to proposals made during the annual shareholder meeting. The
first measure, BlackRockOppose, is an indicator equal to one if BlackRock votes
against (for) any shareholder proposal supported (opposed) by management. The second
measure, BlackRockOpposeES, is an indicator of whether BlackRock votes against (for)
proposals supported (opposed) by management on environmental and social topics,
following He et al. (2020).25 We consider votes at the shareholder meeting in the same
year as the BlackRock letter (approximately five months, on average, after the
BlackRock letter for calendar-year-end firms). Our independent variable of interest is
DisclosureSimilarity, which is the same variable we use in our primary analysis. In
these tests, we limit our sample to firms owned by BlackRock, as BlackRock casts votes
only for these firms. To the extent that a firm’s disclosure response suggests firms’
alignment with issues conveyed in the letter, we expect β1 to be negative.
因变量 BlackRockOppose 是衡量 BlackRock 反对年度股东大会期间提议的两个指
标之一。第一个指标是 BlackRockOppose，如果 BlackRock 投票反对管理层支持
(反对)的任何股东提议，这个指标等于 1。第二个衡量标准是 BlackRockOpposeES，
它是一个指标，表明 BlackRock 是否投票反对管理层在环境和社会问题上支持(反
对)的提议。25. 我们在股东大会上考虑与 BlackRock 公开信同一年的投票结果(平
均约在 BlackRock 公开信之后 5 个月，对于日历年终公司而言)。我们感兴趣的独
立变量是披露相似性，这是我们在主要分析中使用的相同变量。在这些测试中，
我们将样本限制在贝莱德所拥有的公司，因为贝莱德只为这些公司投票。在某种
程度上，一家公司的信息披露反应表明公司与信中所传达的问题保持一致，我们
预计 β1 是负的。
We control for a variety of proposal and firm characteristics that have been shown to
influence voting outcomes (e.g., Gordon and Pound 1993; Morgan et al. 2011; He et al.
2020). Prior research shows that mutual funds are more likely to vote in favor of proposals
perceived as value-increasing, including governance-related proposals, especially when
governance is believed to be weak (e.g., Morgan et al. 2011). Thus, we include controls for
the total number of proposals (including management and shareholder) (Nproposals), the
percentage of proposals related to environmental and social (ES) issues (PctEnvSocial), the
percentage of shareholder proposals (PctShareholder), and total institutional ownership (IO).
Moreover, He et al. (2020) show that firms with ES proposals tend to be significantly larger
and have more resources, higher performance, and higher market-to-book ratios, but lower
sales growth. Thus, we include controls for market value of equity (MVE), market-to-book
(MTB), cash holdings (Cash), return on assets (ROA), total sales (Sales), stock returns
(AbnRet), and stock return volatility (StdRet), measured as of the quarter ending
immediately prior to the letter. Additionally, we control for BlackRock’s ownership in the
firm (BlackRockOwn), as BlackRock is likely to evaluate voting decisions more carefully
when it has a larger stake in the firm. We also control for prior disagreement between
BlackRock and firm management, as indicated by whether BlackRock voted opposite
management on proposals in the prior year (BlackRockOpposePY). Finally, we also control
for the percentage of votes cast by BlackRock ETFs (i.e., fund names including iShares),
PctPassive, as passive funds face different incentives due to their inability to exit.
我们控制各种提案和公司特征，这些特征已经被证明会影响投票结果 (例如，
Gordon 和 Pound 1993; Morgan 等，2011; He 等，2020)。先前的研究表明，共同基金
更有可能投票支持被视为增值的提议，包括与治理相关的提议，特别是当治理被认为
是薄弱的时候(例如，Morgan et al。2011)。因此，我们包括对建议书总数(包括管理层
和股东)(非建议书)、与环境和社会(ES)问题有关的建议书百分比(PctEnvSocial)、股东
建议书百分比(PctShareholder)和机构总拥有权(IO)的控制。此外，He 等人(2020)指出，
拥有 ES 方案的公司往往规模更大，拥有更多的资源，业绩更好，市净率更高，但销
售增长率较低。因此，我们包括控制权益的市场价值(MVE) ，市净率(MTB) ，现金持
有量(Cash) ，资产回报率(ROA) ，总销售额(Sales) ，股票回报率(AbnRet)和股票回报
波动率(StdRet)。此外，我们控制贝莱德在该公司(BlackRockOwn)的所有权，因为当贝
莱德在该公司拥有更多股份时，它可能会更仔细地评估投票决定。我们还控制了贝莱
德和公司管理层之间先前的分歧，正如贝莱德是否在前一年投票给了相反的管理层
(BlackRockOpposePY)所表明的那样。最后，我们还控制了贝莱德 etf (即包括 iShares
在内的基金名称)、 PctPassive 投票的百分比，因为被动型基金由于无法退出而面临不
同的激励。
Table 5, Panel B reports the results of this estimation. In columns (1) and (2), we find that
BlackRock opposition to management is decreasing with the change in disclosure similarity: the
coefficient of interest, β1, is negative and statistically different from zero whether we are
investigating all shareholder proposals (p < 0.05) or ES proposals specifically (p < 0.05). This
result holds when we control for private engagement (PrivateEngagement). Overall, these
表 5，面板 b 报告了这一估计的结果。在第(1)和(2)栏中，我们发现贝莱德对管理层的反
对随着信息披露相似性的变化而减少: 无论我们调查的是所有的股东建议(p < 0.05)还是专门
调查的 ES 建议(p < 0.05) ，利益系数 β1 都是负的，统计学上与零有所不同。当我们控制私
人参与(private engagement)时，这个结果成立。总的来说，这些
25 We rely on a linear model to accommodate our fixed effects structure (e.g., Greene 2004). However,
untabulated analysis confirms that the result is also robust to estimating the equation using a probit model (p <
0.05 and p < 0.01 for the shareholder proposal and environmental/social voting tests, respectively).
我们依赖于一个线性模型来适应我们的固定效果结构(例如 Greene 2004)。然而，非表格分析证实，结
果也是稳健的估计方程使用概率模型(p < 0.05 和 p < 0.01 的股东建议和环境/社会投票测试，分别)。
CEO’ letters
results suggest that firms can mitigate subsequent disciplinary actions by BlackRock by
responding to BlackRock’s letters through disclosure during the post-letter period.
调查结果表明，公司可以通过在信后期间披露信息来回应贝莱德的信件，从而减
轻贝莱德随后的纪律处分行为。
4.3 Firms’ public policy response

4.3 企业的公共政策回应
The evidence in the previous section suggests that BlackRock values the post-letter change in
firms’ disclosures (i.e., firms’ disclosures are informative and influence BlackRock’s voting
behavior), and that portfolio firms do not generally oppose BlackRock’s recommendations.
In this section, we investigate whether firms take actions, beyond disclosure, to further align
themselves with BlackRock’s preferences. Specifically, BlackRock also uses the letters as a
platform to advocate for certain public policies, including ones that address uneven wage
growth, labor displacement, infrastructure investment, and tax reform. Thus, in addition to
altering their disclosures, firms may respond to BlackRock’s public policy recommendations
by changing their own public advocacy efforts. To evaluate this possibility, we analyze firms’
lobbying activity in the post-letter period. Studying firms’ lobbying activity is ideal in our
setting not only because the letters emphasize public advocacy efforts, but also because
lobbying is observable and practiced by a wide set of firms.
前一部分的证据表明，贝莱德看重公司信后披露的变化(即，公司披露信息丰富，并影
响贝莱德的投票行为) ，投资组合公司一般不反对贝莱德的建议。在这一部分，我们
调查公司是否采取行动，超越披露，进一步调整自己与贝莱德的偏好。具体而言，贝
莱德还利用这些信件作为平台，倡导某些公共政策，包括解决工资增长不平衡、劳动
力转移、基础设施投资和税收改革等问题的政策。因此，除了改变他们的披露，公司
可以通过改变他们自己的公共宣传努力来回应贝莱德的公共政策建议。为了评估这种
可能性，我们分析了公司在后信时期的游说活动。研究公司的游说活动在我们的环境
中是理想的，不仅因为这些信件强调了公共宣传的努力，而且还因为游说活动是可以
观察到的，并且被广泛的公司实践。
To identify firms’ lobbying activity, we gather data on the issues lobbied by sample firms
from LobbyView, a comprehensive lobbying database that is based on the universe of
26
lobbying reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (Kim 2018). The dataset
includes details on the general issues lobbied (e.g., environment, taxes, healthcare, etc.), as
well as a description of specific policies and bills targeted by firms. To create our measure of
firms’ lobbying response to the most recent BlackRock letter, we compare the text that
details the specific issues lobbied in firms’ lobbying disclosures to the text in the BlackRock
letter. Firms are required to report lobbying activities quarterly. However, because
BlackRock generally publishes letters in the first calendar quarter of the year, we study firms’
lobbying disclosures over the remaining three quarters. Our proxy for firms’ public advocacy
response to the BlackRock letters is LobbySimilarity, measured as the difference between (1)
the cosine similarity score of the text included in BlackRock’s letter in quarter t to the text
description of specific issues lobbied in firm i’s lobbying disclosures in quarters t + 1 through
t + 3, and (2) the cosine similarity score of the letter from period t and quarters t-3 to t-1 (to
avoid overlap with the previous year’s letter).
为了确定公司的游说活动，我们从 LobbyView 收集样本公司游说问题的数据。
LobbyView 是一个综合性的游说数据库，基于根据 1995 年《游说披露法》(Lobbying
Disclosure Act of 1995，Kim 2018)提交的大量游说报告。26 该数据集包括被游说的一
般问题的详细信息(例如，环境、税收、医疗保健等) ，以及公司针对的具体政策和法
案的说明。为了衡量企业对贝莱德最近一封信的游说反应，我们将详细说明企业游说
披露中游说的具体问题的文本与贝莱德信中的文本进行了比较。公司被要求每季度报
告游说活动。然而，由于贝莱德通常在一年中的第一个季度发布信件，我们研究公司
在剩下的三个季度的游说披露。我们公司对贝莱德信件的公共宣传反应的代理是游说
相似性，衡量标准是: (1)贝莱德信件中包含的文本在第四季度 t 中的余弦距离得分与
公司 i 在第四季度 t + 1 至 t + 3 中游说披露的具体问题的文本描述之间的差异; (2)从第
四季度 t 到第三季度 t 到第一季度的信件的余弦距离得分(以避免与前一年的信件重叠)。
To validate our measure, we identify whether lobbying activity by firms with relatively high
levels of LobbySimilarity is more likely to reflect issues outlined in the letter. To do this, we link
key policy topics identified in Table 1 to general lobby issue codes.27 Specifically, firms are
required to select one or more general issue codes that correspond to various policy areas. We
identify six relevant lobby codes: Environmental (ENV), Science/Technology (SCI),
Taxation/Internal Revenue Service (TAX), Labor Issues/Antitrust/Workplace (LBR), Retirement
(RET), and Trade (TRD), and we compare the frequency of lobby codes mentioned across firms
with high vs. low LobbySimilarity. In Fig. 2, we observe a higher
为了验证我们的措施，我们确定是否游说活动的公司相对高水平的游说相似性更有可能
反映问题概述的信。为此，我们将表 1 中确定的关键政策主题与一般游说发行代码联系起
来。27 具体而言，公司被要求选择一个或多个与不同政策领域相对应的一般发行代码。我
们确定了六个相关的游说代码: 环境(ENV) ，科学/技术(SCI) ，税收/国内收入服务(TAX) ，
劳工问题/反托拉斯/工作场所(LBR) ，退休(RET)和贸易(TRD) ，我们比较了不同公司提到
的游说代码的频率。在图 2 中，我们观察到一个更高的
26Lobbying reports are filed with the Secretary of the Senate’s Office. The lobbying reports disclose
specific bills that firms lobby for or against. LobbyView analysts maintain the lobbying data, which they
manually match to Compustat by company name. See lobbyview.org for more details.
游说报告提交给参议院办公室秘书。游说报告披露了公司游说支持或反对的具体法案。
LobbyView 的分析师维护游说数据，他们手动匹配 Compustat 的公司名称。详情请参阅
lobbyview.org。
27There are 83 codes in total:
https://lda.congress.gov/ld/help/default.htm?turl=Documents%2FAppCodes. htm.
共有 83 个代码: https://lda.congress. gov/ld/help/default.htm? turl = documents% 2fappcodes. htm。
We successfully link six of the seven policy topics from Table 1 to lobby issue codes (we did not
identify a suitable lobby code for infrastructure).
我们成功地将表 1 中的七个政策主题中的六个与游说发行代码联系起来(我们没有为基础设施确
定合适的游说代码)。
frequency of lobby reports that contain issues pertaining to ENV, TAX, LBR, RET,
and TRD, but Table 6, Panel A reveals that only TAX, LBR, and TRD are
significantly different across the two groups. Nonetheless, this provides some
evidence that our LobbySimilarity variable is identifying lobbying activity that
aligns with topics discussed in the BlackRock letter.
包含与 ENV、 TAX、 LBR、 RET 和 TRD 有关的问题的游说报告的频率，但
表 6，面板 a 显示，只有 TAX、 LBR 和 TRD 在两组中有显著差异。尽管如
此，这提供了一些证据，表明我们的大堂相似性变量正在识别与贝莱德信件
中讨论的主题一致的游说活动。
In addition to investigating whether firms alter their lobbying activity in general, we also
investigate whether firms that share BlackRock’s policy preferences ex ante are even more
likely to change their lobbying behavior in response to the letters. We rely on the political
leanings of portfolio firms to identify whether firms’ public policy objectives coincide ex
ante with the policies detailed in Fink’s Dear CEO letter. The two primary political parties in
the United States generally hold distinct positions on issues such as taxes, competition, and
environmental and labor laws (Alesina et al. 1997; Caporale and Grier 2000; McCarty et al.
28
2016). Like the BlackRock letters, the Democratic party platform tends to promote
environmental protection, advocate for equal access to quality healthcare and education, and
criticize workforce disparity. To the extent that portfolio firms that contribute primarily to
the Democratic party are also more likely to support the agenda conveyed in the BlackRock
letters, we expect Democratic-leaning firms to respond more strongly to the letters. Thus, we
identify firms whose campaign contributions, as reported to the Federal Election Committee
29
(FEC), primarily support candidates from the Democratic party. Specifically, we construct
an indicator variable, SupportsDemocrats, that equals one if the firm allocates 75% or more
of its political contributions to candidates from the Democratic party, zero otherwise. We
interact this measure with our proxies for BlackRock ownership to evaluate lobbying
similarity after the release of the BlackRock letter, by estimating the following equation:
除了调查公司是否改变了他们的游说活动一般，我们还调查是否公司分享贝莱德的
政策偏好事先更有可能改变他们的游说行为回应信件。我们依靠投资组合公司的政治
倾向来确定公司的公共政策目标是否与芬克在“亲爱的 CEO”信中详述的政策事先一致。
美国的两个主要政党在税收、竞争、环境和劳动法等问题上一般持有不同的立场
(Alesina et al. 1997; Caporale and Grier 2000; McCarty et al. 2016)。28 和 BlackRock 信件
一样，民主党的纲领倾向于促进环境保护，倡导平等获得优质医疗和教育，并批评劳
动力差距。鉴于主要为民主党做出贡献的投资组合公司也更有可能支持贝莱德信件所
传达的议程，我们预计倾向于民主党的公司会对这些信件作出更强烈的回应。因此，
我们确定那些向联邦选举委员会(FEC)报告的竞选捐款主要支持民主党候选人的公司。
具体来说，我们构造了一个指标变量“支持民主党人”，如果该公司将 75% 或更多的政
治捐款分配给民主党候选人，该变量等于 1，否则为 0。我们与我们的代理人互动这
个衡量黑石所有权，以评估游说相似性在黑石公开信后，通过估计以下公式:
LobbySimilarity ¼ α þ β1BlackRockOwnershipi;t
大厅相似性 1 -- 4 α + β1BlackRockOwnershipi; t
þ β2SupportsDemocratsi;t *BlackRockOwnershipi;t
Β2 支持民主; t * BlackRockOwnershipi; t
þ β3SupportsDemocratsi;t þ ∑δ Controlsi;t þ γFE þ ε ð3Þ
Β3 支持民主党; t + ∑ δ 控制 si; t + γFE + ε ー3þ
The dependent variable, LobbySimilarity, is measured as the similarity between the

BlackRock letter and the text of the firm’s lobbying disclosure filed over the three
quarters after the letter minus LobbySimilarityPY; BlackRockOwnership represents one
of the proxies for BlackRock ownership (BlackRockBH or BlackRock%);
SupportsDemocrats is as previously defined. If firms are more likely to lobby for public
policy issues detailed in the letter, regardless of whether they lobby for or against those
policies, then we expect a positive coefficient on β1. If firms are more likely to
因变量“游说相似度”(LobbySimilarity)是以贝莱德信函与该公司在信函后三个季度
提交的游说披露文本之间的相似度减去游说相似度来衡量的; 贝莱德所有权代表
着贝莱德所有权的代理人之一(BlackRockBH 或 BlackRock%) ; 支持民主党人则按
照先前的定义。如果企业更有可能为信中详述的公共政策问题进行游说，而不管
他们是支持还是反对这些政策，那么我们预期 β1 的正系数。如果企业更有可能
28Republicans: https://www.gop.com/platform/. Democrats: https://democrats.org/where-we-

stand/party-platform/.
共和党人: http://www.gop. com/platform/. Democrats: https://Democrats. org/where-we-stand/party-
platform/。
29 Firms’ campaign-financing activity is observable because of the Federal Election Committee (FEC)
requirements to disclose campaign contributions. Although the Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits
corporations from making contributions directly to federal election campaigns, corporations may legally
participate in federal election activities through a corporate-sponsored Political Action Committee
(PAC). For example, the corporate-sponsored PAC can solicit contributions from the corporation’s
executives, employees, and stockholders. The corporate executives who manage the PAC then
strategically allocate these funds to political campaigns. These contributions (known as hard money
contributions) are summarized and reported to the FEC on an interim basis.
由于联邦选举委员会(FEC)要求公开竞选捐款，公司的竞选筹资活动是可以观察到的。虽然《联
邦选举运动法》禁止公司直接向联邦选举运动捐款，但公司可以通过公司赞助的政治行动委员会
合法地参加联邦选举活动。例如，企业赞助的政治行动委员会可以向企业的高管、雇员和股东征
求捐款。管理政治行动委员会的公司高管然后战略性地将这些资金分配给政治活动。这些捐款
(称为硬资金捐款)被总结并在临时基础上报告给联邦选举委员会。
CEO’ letters
1.3
1.3
1.2
1.2
1.1
1.1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
TR
ENV D
环境 SCI TAX LBR RET TR
报告 SCI 税务 LBR RET D
LobbySimilarity LobbySimilarity
<P50 >P50
大堂相似性 < 大堂相似度 >
P50 P50
Fig. 2 Lobby codes by LobbySimilarity. Note: Fig. 2 plots lobby code indicator averages by high/low
LobbySimilarity firms. Specifically, we identified six lobby codes to represent topics from the
BlackRock letters (we were unable to identify a lobby code that corresponded with infrastructure). The
six lobby codes represent lobbying activity related to Environmental (ENV), Science/Technology (SCI),
Taxation/Internal Revenue Service (TAX), Labor Issues/Antitrust/Workplace (LBR), Retirement (RET),
and Trade (TRD) topics. To account for differences in scale and to remain consistent with Fig. 1, we
present each of the indicator measures as a percentage of the average of that lobby code indicator. The
raw percentages are tabulated in Table 6, Panel A
图 2 大堂代码通过大堂相似性。注意: 图 2 绘制了高/低大堂相似性公司的大堂代码指标平均值。
具体而言，我们确定了六个大堂代码来代表贝莱德信件中的主题(我们无法确定与基础设施相对
应的大堂代码)。六个游说代码代表与环境(ENV)、科学/技术(SCI)、税收/国内税收服务(TAX)、
劳工问题/反托拉斯/工作场所(LBR)、退休(RET)和贸易(TRD)相关的游说活动。为了说明规模上
的差异并与图 1 保持一致，我们将每个指标度量值作为游说代码指标平均值的百分比。原始百分
比列于表 6，a 组
align their public advocacy with BlackRock’s public policy agenda, then we expect
a positive coefficient on β2.
将他们的公共宣传与贝莱德的公共政策议程结合起来，那么我们期待 β2 的正
系数。
As in eq. (1), we control for State Street (StateStreetBH, StateStreet%) and Van-
guard (VanguardBH, Vanguard%) ownership, the total number of blockholders
(NumberBH), and total institutional ownership (IO). We also control for firms’ prior
lobbying behavior by including LobbySimilarityPY, calculated as the cosine similarity
of lobby filings from quarters t-3 to t-1 from the previous year to the current year’s
BlackRock letter, as previously described. Finally, we control for various firm charac-
teristics previously linked to firms’ political activity (e.g., Cooper et al. 2010). These
characteristics, which are related to firm size, resources, and performance, include
market value of equity (MVE), market-to-book (MTB), leverage ratio (Leverage), total
number of employees (Employees), total number of business segments (Segments),
market share (Marketshare), market share squared to capture non-linearities in market
share (Marketshare_sq), return on assets (ROA), total sales (Sales), and stock returns
(AbnRet). In addition, we control for industry characteristics that explain firms’ pro-
pensity to engage in political activism; an indicator for whether the firm belongs to a
politically sensitive industry (Sensitive Industry); and the Herfindahl index (HHI) for
industry concentration. Finally, we include year and two-digit SIC industry fixed effects.
Standard errors are clustered at the firm level.
如等式中所示。(1)我们控制道富银行(道富银行，道富银行%)和 Van-guard 银
行(先锋银行，先锋银行%)的所有权、大股东总数(NumberBH)和机构所有权总数
(IO)。如前所述，我们还通过包含游说相似度来控制公司先前的游说行为，即从
前一年的第三季度到第一季度的游说文件的余弦距离计算出来的游说相似度。最
后，我们控制了以前与公司政治活动相关的各种公司特征(例如，Cooper 等，
2010)。这些与公司规模、资源和绩效有关的特征包括: 股权市值(MVE)、市净率
(MTB)、杠杆比率(Leverage)、雇员总数(Employees)、业务部门总数(Segments)、
市场份额(Marketshare)、市场份额的平方以捕捉市场份额(Marketshare)、资产回报
率(ROA)、总销售额(Sales)和股票回报率(AbnRet)的非线性关系。此外，我们控制
的行业特征，解释企业的倾向参与政治活动，一个指标，企业是否属于一个政治
敏感行业(敏感行业) ，和赫芬达尔指数(HHI)的行业集中度。最后，我们包括年和
两位数的 SIC 行业固定效应。标准错误集中在企业层面。
Table 6, Panel B reports the results of estimating eq. (3). In column (1), we find that
the estimated coefficient on BlackRockBH is positive and significant (p < 0.10). This
result provides limited evidence that portfolio firms change their lobbying activity
during the post-letter period. In addition, the estimated coefficient on
SupportsDemocrats*BlackRockBH is positive and significant (p < 0.05), suggesting
that firms that are aligned with BlackRock’s policy preferences ex ante (i.e.,
表 6 ，面板 b 报告了估计方程的结果。 (3). 在第 (1) 栏中，我们发现
BlackRockBH 的估计系数是正的且显着的(p < 0.10)。这个结果提供了有限的证据，
证明投资组合公司在信后期间改变了他们的游说活动。此外，对支持民主党 *
BlackRockBH 的估计系数是正的和显著的(p < 0.05) ，表明与 BlackRock 的政策偏
好一致的公司事先(即,
A. Pawliczek
et al.
A. Pawliczek
1116 et al.
Table 6 Lobby response to
BlackRock letters
表 6: 对贝莱德来信的大堂反应
Panel A: LobbySimilarity
Validation
面板 a: 大堂相似性验证
LobbySimilarit
y LobbySimilarity
大厅相似性大厅相似性
Mea <P50 <P50
Variable n < P50 < P50 Difference
变量 N 刻薄差异
Lobby Code Indicators:
大堂代码指示器:
1,78
ENV_indicator 0
ENV _ 指示器 1780 0.185 0.178 0.193 0.014
SCI_indicator −0.004
SCI _ 指标 612 0.071 0.073 0.070 0.004
0.077*
1,78 **
TAX_indicator 0 0.077
税务指标 1780 0.546 0.508 0.585 美元
1,78 0.051*
LBR_indicator 0 **
LBR _ 指标 1780 0.15 0.122 0.174 0.051
1,63
6
RET_indicator 1,63
指示器 6 0.05 0.043 0.050 0.007
TRD_indicator 0.061*
TRD _ 指示器 577 0.291 0.260 0.322 0.061 *
Panel B: Multivariate
Evidence
B 组: 多变量证据
LobbySimi
larity
DEPVAR = 大厅相似
DEPVAR = 性
Pred (1) (2)
? (1) (2)
Pred
？
BlackRock Variables:
贝莱德变量:
BlackRockBH (+) 0.008*
布莱克罗克 (+) 0.008 *
(1.787)
(1.787)
BlackRock% (+) −0.001
贝莱德 (+) -0.001
(−1.125)
(- 1.125)
PrivateEngagement
私人参与 0.003 0.003
(1.087) (0.991)
(1.087) (0.991)
PAC Contributions:
帐委会贡献:
SupportsDemocrats*BlackR
ockBH (+)
支持民主党 * 0.030**
BlackRockBH (+) 030 * *
(2.283)
(2.283)
SupportsDemocrats*Bl (+
ackRock% ) 0.007***
支持民主党 * 贝莱 (+ 0.007 美
德% ) 元
(3.093)
(3.093)
−0.074**
SupportsDemocrats −0.047* - 0.074 *
支持民主党 - 0.047 * *
(−1.815) (−2.320)
(- 1.815) (- 2.320)
Other IO:
其他法律事务主任:
StateStreetBH −0.005
州立大学 - 0.005
(−1.447)
(- 1.447)
VanguardBH
先锋 0.003
(0.578)
(0.578)
StateStreet% 0.001
州立大街
(0.472)
(0.472)
Vanguard%
先锋 0.002
(1.388)
(1.388)
NumberBH 0.001* 0.001*
数字 0.001 * 0.001 *
(1.737) (1.698)
(1.737) (1.698)
−0.025**
*
IO −0.024*** 0.025 美
木卫一 - 0.024 * * 元
(−2.873) (−2.636)
(- 2.873) (- 2.636)
Firm Characteristics:
公司特点:
−0.205**
*
LobbySimilarityPY −0.207*** - 0.205
游说相似性 - 0.207 * * 美元
(−13.557
)
(−13.726) (-
(ー13.726) 13.557)
MVE 0.004*** 0.004**
MVE 0.004 * * * 0.004
(2.873) (2.424)
(2.873) (2.424)
MTB −0.000 −0.000
山地车 - 0.000 - 0.000
件的影响 1117
Table 6 (continued)
表 6(续)
(−0.247) (−0.283)
(- 0.247) (- 0.283)
Leverage
杠杆 0.004 0.003
(0.561) (0.415)
(0.561) (0.415)
Employees
雇员 0.002 0.002
(1.065) (1.167)
(1.065) (1.167)
Segments
片段 0.000 0.000
(1.422) (1.219)
(1.422) (1.219)
Sensitive Industry 0.028*** 0.029***
敏感行业 0.028 0.029 * * *
(2.692) (2.686)
(2.692) (2.686)
Marketshare −0.015 −0.010
市场份额ー0.015 ー0.010
(−0.067) (−0.045)
(- 0.067) (- 0.045)
Marketshare_sq
市场份额 0.048 0.001
(0.066) (0.002)
(0.066) (0.002)
HHI
嗨 0.005 0.004
(0.159) (0.132)
(0.159) (0.132)
ROA −0.011 −0.011
ROA -0.011 -0.011
(−0.329) (−0.326)
(- 0.329) (- 0.326)
Sales −0.003 −0.002
销售额 0.003 - 0.002
(−0.322) (−0.267)
(- 0.322) (- 0.267)
AbnRet
阿布雷特 0.002 0.002
(0.393) (0.460)
(0.393) (0.460)
Industry/Year FE
观察 2251 2251
Adj. R-squared
R 平方 0.107 0.106
Note: Table 6 contains the results of our lobbying analysis. Panel A presents descriptive statistics supporting
our LobbySimilarity validation exercise. Specifically, we map topics identified for the DisclosureSimilarity
validation exercise (see Table 1) to lobby codes and tabulate the differences in lobby codes for relevant years by
high and low Lobby Similarity. These values are presented as a percentage of the relevant years’ mean in Figure
2. Panel B contains results from OLS regressions of LobbySimilarity on BlackRock ownership measures
(BlackRockBH and BlackRock%), SupportsDemocrats, the interaction of BlackRock variables and
SupportsDemocrats, and control variables. LobbySimilarity is the similarity of the text from the BlackRock
letter to the text from corporate lobbying filings, calculated using the cosine similarity score.
SupportsDemocrats is an indicator equal to one if more than 75% of the firm’s political contributions are to
Democrats, zero otherwise. All other variables are defined in Appendix B. t-statistics are in parentheses, and
注意: 表 6 包含了我们的游说分析结果。面板 a 显示了支持我们的大堂相似性验证工作的描述统计学。
具体而言，我们将为披露相似性验证工作确定的主题(见表 1)映射到游说代码，并按高低游说相似性列
出相关年份的游说代码差异。这些值以图 2 中相关年份平均值的百分比表示。面板 b 包含 OLS 的回归
结果，涉及贝莱德所有权指标的游说相似性(BlackRockBH 和 BlackRock%) ，支持民主党，贝莱德变量
和支持民主党的相互作用，以及控制变量。游说相似度是指贝莱德(BlackRock)信函中的文本与企业游
说文件中的文本的相似度，计算时使用的是余弦距离相似度分数。如果公司 75% 以上的政治捐款是给
民主党的，那么支持民主党的指标等于 1，否则为 0。所有其他变量定义在附录 b。 t-统计数据在括号
内，和
***, **, and * represent significance levels of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively (two-tailed) in both panels.
Standard errors are clustered at the firm level
* * * 、 * * 和 * 分别代表两组的显著性水平，分别为 1% 、5% 和 10% (双尾)。标准错误集中在
公司层面
Democratic-leaning portfolio firms) are more likely to alter their lobbying program
following the letter release date. In column (2), we examine BlackRock% and
continue to find that Democratic-leaning portfolio firms are more likely to alter
their lobbying program following the letter release date (p < 0.01). These results
suggest that the changes in lobbying activity are stronger for firms that share
BlackRock’s policy preferences ex ante. Taken together, the results in Table 6 are
consistent with BlackRock-owned firms taking additional actions, beyond
disclosure, to align them-selves with BlackRock’s policy preferences.
倾向于民主党的投资组合公司)更有可能在信件发布日期之后改变他们的游说
计划。在第(2)栏中，我们考察了 BlackRock% ，并继续发现倾向于民主党的
投资组合公司更有可能在信件发布日期之后改变其游说计划(p < 0.01)。这些
结果表明，游说活动的变化对于那些事先同意贝莱德政策偏好的公司来说更
为强烈。综上所述，表 6 中的结果与贝莱德所有的公司在披露之外采取的额
外行动是一致的，这些行动是为了与贝莱德的政策偏好保持一致。
Pawliczek et al.
5 Additional analysis
5 附加分析
5.1 Self-selection
5.1 自我选择
Each investor has its own investment philosophy, which can influence the firms it selects for
its portfolio. Therefore, our results may reflect some level of selection bias (i.e., BlackRock
chooses to invest in firms whose strategies and disclosures more closely align with the
preferences expressed in its letters). To address this concern, we exploit the fact that
BlackRock offers a variety of index funds, including funds based on the S&P 500 index. To
offer these funds, BlackRock must invest in firms that are included in the S&P 500 index,
regardless of the characteristics of the individual S&P 500 firms. Thus, if the documented
association between BlackRock ownership and DisclosureSimilarity occurs because
BlackRock selects specific firms, then the results in Table 4 should be less pronounced for
30
firms included in the S&P 500 index. We test this prediction using the following equation:
每个投资者都有自己的投资理念，这种理念可以影响他们选择的投资组合中的公司。
因此，我们的结果可能反映了某种程度的选择偏差(即，贝莱德选择投资那些战略和披
露与其信函中表达的偏好更为一致的公司)。为了解决这个问题，我们利用贝莱德提供
多种指数基金的事实，包括基于标准普尔 500 指数的基金。为了提供这些资金，贝莱
德必须投资于标准普尔 500 指数成份股公司，而不管个别标准普尔 500 指数成份股公
司的特点如何。因此，如果由于贝莱德选择了特定的公司，因此贝莱德所有权和披露
相似性之间存在文件证明的关联，那么对于标准普尔 500 指数中包含的公司，表 4 中
的结果应该不那么显著。30 我们用以下方程来检验这一预测:
DisclosureSimilarity ¼ α þ β1BlackRockOwnershipi;t
披露相似性 1ー4 α + β1BlackRockOwnershipi; t
þ B2S&P500i:t *BlackRockOwnershipi;t þ β3S&P500i;t

B2S & P500i: t * BlackRockOwnershipi; t þ β3S & P500i; t
þ ∑δ Controlsi;t þ γFE þ ε ð4Þ

∑ δ 控制 si; t þ γFE þ ε ð4þ
S&P500 is an indicator variable equal to one if the firm is a member of the S&P
500 index. DisclosureSimilarity and BlackRockOwnership are defined in sections
3.1.1 and 3.1.2, respectively. The coefficient of interest is represented by β1, which
describes how the change in disclosure similarity for BlackRock-owned firms
varies with S&P 500 membership.
如果公司是标准普尔 500 指数的成员，标准普尔 500 指数是一个等于 1 的指
标变量。披露相似性和贝莱德所有权分别在第 3.1.1 和 3.1.2 节中定义。利益
系数由 β1 表示，β1 描述了标准普尔 500 成员公司在披露相似性方面的变化。
If the results in Table 4 are an artifact of the types of firms BlackRock chooses to invest in, we
expect β1 to be negative (i.e., the disclosure response is less pronounced among S&P 500 firms).
The results of this equation are presented in Table 7. We find insignificant coefficients on β1 in
each specification. These results are inconsistent with a muted disclosure response from S&P 500
firms. Overall, the results in Table 7 are inconsistent with the notion that the variation in
disclosure similarity we observe in Table 4 is solely attributable to a selection effect.
如果表 4 中的结果是贝莱德选择投资的公司类型的人为因素，我们预计 β1 为负值(即，
标准普尔 500 指数成份股公司的披露反应较不明显)。这个等式的结果如表 7 所示。我们发
现在每个规范中 β1 的系数不显着。这些结果与标准普尔 500 指数成分股公司低调的披露反
应不一致。总体而言，表 7 中的结果与我们在表 4 中观察到的披露相似性的变化完全归因
于选择效应的概念不一致。
5.2 Robustness to alternative pre-period definitions

5.2 对其他前期定义的稳健性
In this section, we assess the robustness of our results to alternative controls for prior-period
disclosure attributes. We argue that using a 90-day window in the pre-period allows us to capture
an appropriate baseline for firms’ general disclosure tendencies, as a shorter pre-period window
may produce non-representative 8-Ks, which would add noise to our disclosure change measure.
However, our use of a 90-day pre-period naturally increases the number of 8-Ks analyzed. This
increase in the number of 8-Ks analyzed could influence changes in disclosure similarity for all
firms, because more information is produced in the pre-period
在本节中，我们评估我们的结果对前期披露属性的替代控制的稳健性。我们认为，在前期
使用 90 天窗口可以使我们获得公司一般披露倾向的适当基线，因为较短的前期窗口可能产
生不具代表性的 8-k，这将给我们的披露变更措施增加噪音。然而，我们使用 90 天前期自
然增加了分析的 8-k 的数量。所分析的 8-k 数量的增加可能会影响所有公司在披露相似性
方面的变化，因为在前期会产生更多的信息
30
BlackRock still has some degree of choice in whether to blockhold individual firms included in the S&P
在是否封锁标准普尔指数成分股公司的问题上，贝莱德仍有一定程度的选择余地
500 index if its ownership percentage in that firm resulting from its index funds is less than 5%. On
average, however, we find that BlackRock is much more likely to be a blockholder of S&P 500 firms
and has larger holdings in them, which suggests that S&P 500 membership is driving at least some of
BlackRock’s holdings in these firms. BlackRock is a blockholder in 92% of S&P 500 member firm-years
in the sample and 58% of non-S&P 500 firm-years.
指数基金在该公司的所有权比例低于 5% 。然而，平均而言，我们发现贝莱德更有可能成为标准
普尔 500 指数成分股公司的大股东，并持有这些公司的更多股份，这表明标准普尔 500 指数成分
股至少推动了贝莱德持有这些公司的部分股份。贝莱德是标准普尔 500 指数成分股公司年中 92%
的股东，在非标准普尔 500 指数成分股公司年中 58% 的股东。
CEO’ letters
window than in the post-period window. To mitigate this concern, we confirm that our
main result is robust to including alternative windows for pre-period disclosure
similarity (i.e., PriorDiscSimilarity), namely (1) the average of disclosure similarity
across three 30-day windows (i.e., [−90,−60], [−60,−30], and [−30,−1]), and (2) the
disclosure similarity in the 30 days prior to the release of the letter (i.e., [−30,−1]). The
results of this analysis, reported in columns (1) through (4) of Table 8, confirm that our
main findings are robust to these alternative definitions of firms’ prior disclosures.
而不是后期窗口。为了减轻这种担忧，我们确认我们的主要结果是稳健的，包括
前期披露相似性的替代窗口(即先验相似性) ，即(1)三个 30 天窗口(即[-90,-60] ，[-
60,-30]和[-30,-1])的披露相似性的平均值，以及(2)信件发布前 30 天的披露相似性
(即[-30,-1])。表 8 第(1)至(4)栏中报告的分析结果证实，我们的主要发现对于企业
先前披露的这些替代定义是稳健的。
Although the types of 8-Ks are largely similar across the pre- and post-periods in our main
analysis, it is also possible that differences in the type of 8-Ks issued during the pre-period relative
to the post-period may result in changes in disclosure similarity, because of variation in the
discussion included across different 8-K items. In our primary specification, we control for
differences in 8-K attributes. However, these controls may be insufficient if the relation between
8-K items and disclosure similarity is non-linear. Thus, we next compare firms’ post-letter 8-K
disclosures to 8-K disclosures issued over a similar 30-day window during the previous quarter
(i.e., [−90,−60]). Because this alternative pre-period window covers a similar
虽然在我们的主要分析中，8-K 的类型在前期和后期基本上是相似的，但由于不同的 8-
k 项目所包含的讨论的差异，在前期相对于后期发放的 8-k 类型的差异也可能导致披露相似
性的变化。在我们的主要规范中，我们控制 8-k 属性的差异。然而，如果 8-k 项目与披露
相似性之间的关系是非线性的，那么这些控制可能是不够的。因此，我们接下来比较公司
的信后 8-k 披露与 8-k 披露在类似的 30 天窗口在前一个季度(即[-90,-60])。因为这个可选择
的前期窗口涵盖了一个类似的
Table 7 S&P500 and disclosure response to BlackRock letters

表 7 标准普尔 500 指数和对贝莱德信件的披露回应
DisclosureSimil
DEPVAR = arity
Pred? (1) (2)
Pred？ (1) (2)
BlackRock Variables:
贝莱德变量:
BlackRockBH (+) 0.008*
布莱克罗克 (+) 0.008 *
(1.812)
(1.812)
0.004**
*
BlackRock% (+) 0.004 *
贝莱德 (+) **
(2.711)
(2.711)
PrivateEngagement
私人参与 0.000 0.000
(0.013) (0.095)
(0.013) (0.095)
S&P500 Variables:
标准普尔 500 变量:
S&P500*BlackRockB
H
标准普尔 500 指数 * (+)/0
BlackRockBH (+)/0 0.006
(0.322)
(0.322)
S&P500*BlackRock%
标准普尔 500 指数 * (+)/0 −0.001
BlackRock% (+)/0 -0.001
(−0.581)
(- 0.581)
S&P500
标普 500 指数 0.005 0.023
(0.312) (1.303)
(0.312) (1.303)
Controls
控制器 Y Y
Industry/Year FE
观察 7900 7900
Adj. R-squared
R 平方 0.403 0.404
Note: Table 7 presents the results from an

OLS regression of DisclosureSimilarity on
注: 表 7 列出了生命线行为分析的回归 BlackRock ownership
结果贝莱德所有权的披露相似性
measures, an indicator for S&P 500 inclusion (S&P500), and the interaction. DisclosureSimilarity is the cosine
similarity of the text from the BlackRock letter to the text from the 8-Ks filed 30 days subsequent to the letter,
minus the similarity score from the 90 days prior. BlackRockBH is an indicator equal to one if BlackRock
owns >5% of the firm’s outstanding shares, and BlackRock% is the decile rank of BlackRock’s percentage
ownership in the firm. t-statistics are in parentheses, and ***, **, and * represent significance levels of 1%, 5%,
and 10%, respectively (two-tailed). Standard errors are clustered at the firm level
衡量标准普尔 500 指数的指标(s & p 500) ，以及相互作用。披露相似性是指贝莱德信件中的文本与该信
件 30 天后提交的 8-k 文本的余弦距离，减去 90 天前的相似性得分。如果贝莱德持有该公司超过 5% 的
流通股，那么 BlackRockBH 是一个等于 1 的指标，而 BlackRock% 是贝莱德持有该公司 10% 股份的指
标。T 统计量在括号内，* * * 、 * * 和 * 分别表示 1% 、5% 和 10% 的显著性水平(双尾)。标准错误集
中在公司层面
Pawliczek et al.
30-day period relative to the quarter end, we expect the composition of 8-Ks in the
pre-period window to be even more similar to that in the post-period. We report the
results in columns (5) and (6) of Table 8. While this restriction results in sample
attrition, we find that our main inferences are unaffected by it. This test further
alleviates concerns that our result is an artifact of the timing or distribution of 8-Ks.
30 天期间相对于季度末，我们预计前期窗口中 8-k 的构成将与后期更为相似。
我们在表 8 的列(5)和(6)中报告结果。虽然这种限制导致样本损耗，但我们发
现我们的主要推论不受影响。这个测试进一步缓解了人们对我们的结果是 8-k
的时间或分布的人为因素的担忧。
5.3 Robustness to alternative public disclosures

5.3 对替代公开披露的稳健性
For our primary analysis, we rely on 8-K disclosures because (1) we can examine them
immediately following the issuance of the letter, and (2) managers have discretion over
their content. However, the effect of BlackRock’s request for enhanced public
disclosures likely extends beyond the immediate response in firms’ 8-K disclosures. For
example, managers may use the discretion inherent in the Management Discussion and
Analysis (MD&A) portion of the 10-K to communicate historical and forward-looking
information about environmental and regulatory risks and opportunities. Moreover,
managers may take the opportunity to acknowl-edge and/or quantify these risks in their
risk disclosures. Thus, we next evaluate whether portfolio firms also alter their MD&A
and risk factor disclosures following the letter release date. While these disclosures are
mandatory for all firms in our sample, the timing of the 10-K release is inflexible, and
the disclosures therein may be preempted by more timely disclosures (i.e., 8-Ks).
对于我们的初步分析，我们依赖于 8-k 披露，因为(1)我们可以在信件发出后立即
对其进行审查，(2)管理人员对其内容有自由裁量权。然而，贝莱德要求加强公开
披露的影响可能超出了公司 8-k 披露的即时反应。例如，管理人员可以使用 10-k
的管理讨论和分析部分中固有的酌处权，来交流有关环境和监管风险和机会的历
史和前瞻性信息。此外，管理者可以利用这个机会在他们的风险披露中承认和/或
量化这些风险。因此，我们接下来评估投资组合公司是否也会在信件发布日期之
后改变 md & a 和风险因素披露。虽然这些披露对我们样本中的所有公司都是强
制性的，但 10-k 发布的时间是不灵活的，其中的披露可能会被更及时的披露(即
8-k)抢占先机。
Nonetheless, we extract both the MD&A and risk factor disclosures from the 10-Ks filed
after each letter for our sample firm-years. Using item headers to identify and parse the
appropriate sections (these disclosures are generally found in Item 7 and Item 1A,
respectively), we require an identifiable MD&A/risk factor disclosure if the firm-year is to be
included in each of the respective analyses. We then calculate similarity scores for the
similarity between the relevant section and the preceding BlackRock letter, as well as for the
similarity between the same letter and the previous year’s 10-K (i.e., to control for prior
period disclosure similarity). We calculate MDA_Similarity and RiskFactor_Similarity as the
difference in similarity score between the 10-K immediately following the letter and the prior
year’s 10-K. We re-estimate eq. (1) excluding 8-K controls, replacing disclosure similarity
calculated from firms’ 8-Ks with disclosure similarity calculated from firms’ MD&A and risk
factor disclosures, respectively. All other controls are previously defined in eq. (1). The
results are presented in Table 9.
尽管如此，我们从样本公司年份的每封信后提交的 10-k 中提取 md & a 和风险因素
披露。使用项目标题来识别和分析适当的章节(这些披露一般分别见于项目 7 和项目
1a) ，如果公司年份要包括在每个相关的分析中，我们需要一个可识别的 md & a/风险
因素披露。然后，我们计算相关部分与上一个贝莱德信件的相似性，以及同一个信件
与上一年的 10-k 之间的相似性(即控制前期披露的相似性)的相似性得分。我们计算
MDA _ 相似度和危险因素 _ 相似度作为紧接字母后的 10-k 和前一年的 10-k 之间相似
度得分的差异。我们重新估计等式。(1)排除 8-k 控制，将企业 8-k 计算的披露相似性
替换为企业 md & a 计算的披露相似性和风险因素披露计算的披露相似性。所有其他
控制措施先前在等式中定义。(1).结果如表 9 所示。
Consistent with our expectations, we find some evidence that firms also respond to the
letters in their 10-Ks. While the coefficient on the blockholder measures is not significantly
different from zero, BlackRock% is positively associated with increases in similarity of
MD&A (p < 0.05) and risk factor (p < 0.01) disclosures to the BlackRock letters. This
analysis corroborates our evidence related to changes in firms’ 8-Ks disclosures and suggests
that BlackRock’s public-engagement efforts influence a broader set of disclosures.
与我们的预期一致，我们发现一些证据表明，企业也会对 10-k 中的字母做出回应。
虽然股东措施的系数与零无显著性差异，但 BlackRock% 与 md & a 相似性的增加(p <
0.05)和与 BlackRock 信件披露的危险因素(p < 0.01)呈正相关。这一分析证实了我们有
关公司 8-k 披露变化的证据，并表明贝莱德的公众参与努力影响了更广泛的一系列披
露。
6 Conclusion
6 结论
We examine whether broad-based public engagement by BlackRock influences the disclosure

choices of portfolio firms. We investigate this question in the context of the annual Dear CEO
letter, wherein the BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink, advocates for a variety of issues and makes
specific public policy recommendations. We observe a change in portfolio firms’ 8-K
我们研究贝莱德广泛的公众参与是否会影响投资组合公司的信息披露选择。我们在一年一
度的 Dear CEO 信中调查了这个问题，在这封信中，BlackRock 的 CEO Larry Fink 提出了各
种各样的问题，并提出了具体的公共政策建议。我们观察到投资组合公司“8-K”的变化
件的影响 1121
Table 8 Disclosure response to BlackRock letters –
alternative prior windows
表 8. 对贝莱德信函的披露答复 -- 替代先前窗口
DisclosureSimi
DEPVAR = larity
Pred
?
Pred (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
？ (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Avg. of 3 30-
PriorDiscSimilarit day win- 30 days, 30 days, one
y calc = 330 天胜利的 immediately quarter
优先相似度平均值 30 天，马上 30 天，1/4
dows prior prior
道斯副院长副院长
BlackRock
Variables:
贝莱德变量:
0.010**
BlackRockBH (+) 0.010 * 0.014** 0.009*
布莱克罗克 (+) * 0.014 0.009 *
(1.970) (2.240) (1.946)
(1.970) (2.240) (1.946)
0.003*
BlackRock% (+) 0.003** 0.004** *
贝莱德 (+) 003 * * 0.004 003 * *
(2.429) (2.165) (2.370)
(2.429) (2.165) (2.370)
PrivateEngage
ment
私人参与 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.002 0.001 0.002
(0.118) (0.216) (0.309) (0.403) (0.309) (0.403)
(0.118) 0.216) (0.309) (0.403) (0.309) (0.403)
Other IO:
其他法律事务主
任:
−0.017*
*
StateStreetBH −0.007 - 0.017 −0.006
州立大学 - 0.007 ** 0.006
(−1.11 (−1.110
0) (−2.149) )
(- (ー (-
1.110) 2.149) 1.110)
VanguardBH −0.002 −0.003
先锋 - 0.002 0.003 0.002
(−0.33
0) (−0.468)
(- (ー (0.499)
0.330) 0.468) (0.499)
StateStreet% −0.002 −0.002 −0.002
州立大街 - 0.002 - 0.002 - 0.002
(−1.444
)
(−1.299) (−0.787) (ー
(- 1.299) (- 0.787) 1.444)
−0.003*
*
Vanguard% −0.001 - 0.003 *−0.000
先锋 -0.001 * - 0.000
(−0.311
(−2.111) )
(−1.138) (ー (-
(- 1.138) 2.111) 0.311)
NumberBH −0.000 −0.000
数字 0.001 0.000 0.002 0.001 - 0.000 - 0.000
(−0.169 (−0.340
) )
(0.446) (0.307) (1.037) (0.827) (- (ー
(0.446) (0.307) (1.037) (0.827) 0.169) 0.340)
−0.020
*
IO - 0.020 −0.017 −0.006 −0.009 −0.006
木卫一 * 0.017 0.006 0.004 -0.009 0.006
(−1.91 (−0.950 (−0.636
5) (−1.536) ) )
(- (ー (−0.414) (0.274) (- (ー
1.915) 1.536) (- 0.414) (0.274) 0.950) 0.636)
8-K/Firm Controls
8-K/公司控制 Y Y Y Y Y Y
Industry/Year FE
行业/年份 FE Y Y Y Y Y Y
Observations 7,900 7,900 4,010 4,010 6,785 6,785
观察 7900 7900 4,010 4,010 6,785 6,785
Adj. R-squared
R 平方 0.524 0.524 0.442 0.442 0.391 0.391
Note: Table 8 presents results from OLS
regressions of DisclosureSimilarity on
注: 表 8 列出了苏丹生命线行动的回归 BlackRock ownership
结果贝莱德所有权的披露相似性
measures (BlackRockBH and BlackRock%) and controls, using alternative prior-period windows to calculate
DisclosureSimilarity. Columns (1) and (2) contain the average of three 30-day windows in place of the 90-day
window, and columns (3) and (4) use only the 30 days immediately prior to the letter. Columns (5) and (6) use a
30-day window 90 days prior (90 to 60 days prior) to the letter. Otherwise, the models are the same as
测量(BlackRockBH 和 BlackRock%)和控制，使用可选择的前期窗口来计算披露相似性。列(1)和(2)包含
三个 30 天窗口的平均值，而不是 90 天窗口，列(3)和(4)仅使用紧接信件之前的 30 天。第(5)栏和第(6)
栏使用信前 90 天(90-60 天)的 30 天窗口。否则，模型是相同的
those presented in Table 4
表 4 中列出的
disclosures around the letter release date, which suggests that firms are responding to Fink’s
call for more disclosure about topics of interest. Specifically, we find that portfolio firms’
disclo-sures during the post-letter period reflect an increase in language similar to that of the
letter, controlling for a variety of firm and disclosure characteristics. Moreover, our results
indicate that the observed change in disclosure around the BlackRock letters is a response to
BlackRock’s broad-based public engagement letters, rather than to a general demand for
information from other important stakeholders (e.g., Vanguard and State Street) or to
BlackRock’s private engagement.
信件发布日期前后的披露，这表明公司正在响应 Fink 的呼吁，要求对感兴趣的话题进
行更多披露。具体而言，我们发现投资组合公司在信后期间的信息披露反映了与信件
相似的语言的增加，控制了各种公司和信息披露特征。此外，我们的研究结果表明，
观察到的围绕贝莱德信函披露的变化，是对贝莱德基础广泛的公众参与信函的回应，
而不是对其他重要利益相关者(如 Vanguard 和 State Street)对信息的普遍需求或贝莱德
的私人参与的回应。
Pawliczek et al.
Further, BlackRock appears to value these additional disclosures, as evidenced by its

reduced opposition to management recommendations in votes during subsequent annual
shareholder meetings. Taken together, our evidence suggests that portfolio firms are
responsive to BlackRock’s public engagement efforts, which allows them to evade
disciplinary actions. Finally, to investigate whether the public advocacy in BlackRock’s
letters mobilizes portfolio firms to advocate for similar issues, we study whether portfolio
firms alter their lobbying behavior in the post-letter period. We provide some evidence that
firms’ lobbying efforts become more focused on the issues highlighted in the letters,
particularly for firms that are more likely to share BlackRock’s policy preferences.
此外，贝莱德似乎很重视这些额外披露，在随后的年度股东大会上，该公司在投票
中减少了对管理层建议的反对。综上所述，我们的证据表明，投资组合公司对贝莱德
的公众参与努力作出了反应，这使得他们能够规避纪律处分。最后，为了研究贝莱德
信件中的公众宣传是否动员了投资组合公司去宣传类似的问题，我们研究了投资组合
公司在信件发出后是否改变了他们的游说行为。我们提供了一些证据，表明公司的游
说努力更多地集中在信中强调的问题上，特别是对于那些更有可能分享贝莱德政策偏
好的公司。
Table 9 Alternative disclosure responses to BlackRock letters
表 9 对贝莱德信函的另一种披露回应
RiskFactor_Similar
DEPVAR = MDA_Similarity ity
DEPVAR = MDA _ 相似性风险因素 _ 相似性
Pred?
Pred (1) (2) (3) (4)
？ (1) (2) (3) (4)
BlackRock
Variables:
贝莱德变量:
BlackRockBH (+) −0.001 −0.002
布莱克罗克 (+) -0.001 - 0.002
(−0.62 (−0.687
7) )
(- (-
0.627) 0.687)
0.001* 0.002**
* *
BlackRock% (+) 001 * 0.002
贝莱德 (+) * 美元
(2.138
)
(2.138 (3.028)
) (3.028)
PrivateEngagem 0.000 −0.000 −0.002 −0.002
ent - 0.000 - 0.002 - 0.002
私人参与
(−1.416
)
(0.142) (−0.003) (- (−1.418)
(0.142) (- 0.003) 1.416) (- 1.418)
Other IO:
其他法律事务主
任:
StateStreetBH −0.002
州立大学 0.001 - 0.002
(−0.819
)
(0.366) (-
(0.366) 0.819)
VanguardBH −0.001
先锋 0.001 -0.001
(−0.444
)
(0.227) (-
0.227) 0.444)
−0.001*
StateStreet% −0.001 - 0.001
州立大街 -0.001 *
(−1.037) (−1.647)
(- 1.037) (- 1.647)
Vanguard% −0.000 −0.001
先锋 - 0.000 -0.001
(−1.305)
(−0.155) (ー
(- 0.155) 1.305)
NumberBH
数字 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
(0.378
)
(0.347) (0.378 (0.853) (0.754)
(0.347) ) (0.853) (0.754)
IO −0.003 0.008*
木卫一 0.001 0.003 0.008 * 0.006
(0.264) (−0.656) (1.717) (1.278)
0.264) (- 0.656) (1.717) (1.278)
Other firm controls
其他公司控制 Y Y Y Y
Industry/Year FE
行业/年份 FE Y Y Y Y
Observations 8,838 8,838 8,322 8,322
观察 8,838 8,838 8,322 8,322
Adj. R-squared
R 平方 0.103 0.103 0.161 0.161
Note: Table 9 contains the results of regressions of MDA_Similarity and RiskFactor_Similarity on

BlackRock ownership measures. MDA_Similarity is the similarity of the text from the BlackRock letter
to the text from the MD&A for 10-Ks filed subsequent to the letter, minus the similarity of the text from
the same BlackRock letter to the MD&A from the prior year’s 10-K. RiskFactor_Similarity is the
similarity of the text from the BlackRock letter to the text from risk factor disclosures identified from 10-
Ks filed subsequent to the letter, minus the similarity of the text of the same BlackRock letter to the text
from risk factor disclosures from the prior year’s 10-K. We exclude the 8-K controls; otherwise, the
models are the same as those presented in Table 4
注: 表 9 包含了对贝莱德所有权度量的 MDA _ 相似性和风险因素 _ 相似性的回归结果。相似性是
指 BlackRock 信函的文本与在该信函之后提交的 md & a 10-K 文本的相似性，减去同一个
BlackRock 信函与 md & a 前一年 10-k 文本的相似性。风险因素 _ 相似性是指贝莱德信函案文与
信函之后提交的 10-k 风险因素披露案文的相似性，减去同一封贝莱德信函案文与前一年 10-k 风
险因素披露案文的相似性。我们排除了 8-k 控件; 否则，模型与表 4 中的模型相同
CEO’ letters
Collectively, our results show thatinstitutional investors can impact the behavior of portfolio
firms through broad-based public engagement. We extend prior research that investigates the
mechanisms through which large institutional investors with diverse ownership use their voice to
influence portfolio firms. Whereas prior research focuses on how these investors target individual
firms, we show that BlackRock engages with portfolio firms more generally.
总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，机构投资者可以通过广泛的公众参与影响投资组合公
司的行为。我们扩展了先前的研究，调查了拥有不同所有权的大型机构投资者通过他们的
声音来影响投资组合公司的机制。先前的研究集中在这些投资者如何瞄准个别公司，我们
表明，贝莱德参与投资组合公司更普遍。
Appendix 1
附录 1
BlackRock’s 2017 ‘Dear CEO’ letter

贝莱德 2017 年“亲爱的 CEO”信
Dear CEO,
亲爱的首席执行官:
Each year, I write to the CEOs of leading companies in which our clients are
shareholders. These clients, the vast majority of whom are investing for long-term
goals like retirement or a child’s education, are the true owners of these companies.
As a fiduciary, I write on their behalf to advocate governance practices that
BlackRock believes will maximize long-term value creation for their investments.
每年，我都会给客户为股东的大公司的首席执行官写信。这些客户绝大多
数都是为了退休或子女教育等长期目标而投资，他们才是这些公司的真正所
有者。作为一个受托人，我代表他们写信，提倡管理实践，贝莱德相信这将
最大限度地为他们的投资创造长期价值。
Last year, we asked CEOs to communicate to shareholders their annual strategic
frameworks for long-term value creation and explicitly affirm that their boards have
reviewed those plans. Many companies responded by publicly disclosing detailed
plans, including robust processes for board involvement. These plans provided
share-holders with an opportunity to evaluate a company’s long-term strategy and
the progress made in executing on it.
去年，我们要求首席执行官们向股东传达他们的长期价值创造年度战略框
架，并明确确认他们的董事会已经审查了这些计划。许多公司的回应是公开
披露详细的计划，包括强有力的董事会参与程序。这些计划为股东提供了一
个机会来评估公司的长期战略以及在执行中取得的进展。
Over the past 12 months, many of the assumptions on which those plans were based
在过去 12 个月里，这些计划所依据的许多假设
– including sustained low inflation and an expectation for continued globalization –
have been upended. Brexit is reshaping Europe; upheaval in the Middle East is
having global consequences; the U.S. is anticipating reflation, rising rates, and
renewed growth; and President Trump’s fiscal, tax and trade policies will further
impact the economic landscape.
包括持续的低通货膨胀和对持续的全球化的期望都被颠覆了。英国脱欧正在
重塑欧洲; 中东动荡正在产生全球性影响; 美国预计通货再膨胀、利率上升和
经济恢复增长; 特朗普总统的财政、税收和贸易政策将进一步影响经济格局。
At the root of many of these changes is a growing backlash against the impact
globalization and technological change are having on many workers and
communities. I remain a firm believer that the overall benefits of globalization have
been significant, and that global companies play a leading role in driving growth
and prosperity for all. However, there is little doubt that globalization’s benefits
have been shared unequally, disproportionately benefitting more highly skilled
workers, especially those in urban areas.
许多这些变化的根源是全球化和技术变革对许多工人和社区的影响日益受
到抵制。我仍然坚信，全球化的总体利益是显著的，全球公司在推动所有人
的增长和繁荣方面发挥着主导作用。然而，毫无疑问的是，全球化带来的好
处被不平等地分享，不成比例地使更多的高技能工人受益，尤其是城市地区
的工人。
On top of uneven wage growth, technology is transforming the labor market,
eliminating millions of jobs for lower-skilled workers even as it creates new opportu-
nities for highly educated ones. Workers whose roles are being lost to technological
change are typically facing retirement with inadequate savings, in part because the
burden for retirement savings increasingly has shifted from employers to employees.
除了不均衡的工资增长之外，技术正在改变劳动力市场，为低技能工人减少了
数百万个工作岗位，尽管它为受过高等教育的人创造了新的机会。在技术变革中
失去作用的工人通常在退休时储蓄不足，部分原因是退休储蓄的负担日益从雇主
转移到雇员身上。
These dynamics have far-reaching political and economic ramifications, which
impact virtually every global company. We believe that it is imperative that
companies understand these changes and adapt their strategies as necessary – not
just following a year like 2016, but as part of a constant process of understanding
the landscape in which you operate.
这些动态具有深远的政治和经济影响，几乎影响到每一家跨国公司。我们
认为，企业必须了解这些变化，并根据需要调整其战略——不仅仅是在 2016
年这样的一年之后，而是作为了解企业运营环境的持续过程的一部分。
Pawliczek et al.
As BlackRock engages with your company this year, we will be looking to see how
your strategic framework reflects and recognizes the impact of the past year’s changes in
the global environment. How have these changes impacted your strategy and how do
you plan to pivot, if necessary, in light of the new world in which you are operating?
随着贝莱德今年与贵公司的合作，我们将关注贵公司的战略框架如何反映并认
识到过去一年全球环境变化的影响。这些变化对你的战略有什么影响? 如果有必
要的话，你打算如何根据你所处的新世界进行调整？
BlackRock engages with companies from the perspective of a long-term
sharehold-er. Since many of our clients’ holdings result from index-linked
investments – which we cannot sell as long as those securities remain in an index –
our clients are the definitive long-term investors. As a fiduciary acting on behalf of
these clients, BlackRock takes corporate governance particularly seriously and
engages with our voice, and with our vote, on matters that can influence the long-
term value of firms. With the continued growth of index investing, including the
use of ETFs by active managers, advocacy and engagement have become even
more important for protecting the long-term interests of investors.
贝莱德从长期股东的角度与公司打交道。由于我们的许多客户持有的股票
来自与指数挂钩的投资——只要这些证券保留在指数中，我们就不能出售—
—我们的客户是最终的长期投资者。作为代表这些客户的受托人，贝莱德特
别重视公司治理，在可能影响公司长期价值的问题上，我们会发出自己的声
音，并参与我们的投票。随着指数投资的持续增长，包括主动型经理人使用
etf，倡导和参与对于保护投资者的长期利益变得更加重要。
As we seek to build long-term value for our clients through engagement, our aim
is not to micromanage a company’s operations. Instead, our primary focus is to
ensure board accountability for creating long-term value. However, a long-term
approach should not be confused with an infinitely patient one. When BlackRock
does not see progress despite ongoing engagement, or companies are insufficiently
responsive to our efforts to protect our clients’ long-term economic interests, we do
not hesitate to exercise our right to vote against incumbent directors or misaligned
executive compensation.
由于我们寻求通过参与为客户创造长期价值，我们的目标不是对公司运营
进行微观管理。相反，我们的主要关注点是确保董事会对创造长期价值负责。
然而，一个长期的方法不应该和一个无限耐心的方法混淆。当贝莱德尽管持
续参与，但仍未看到进展，或者公司对我们保护客户长期经济利益的努力反
应不够积极时，我们会毫不犹豫地行使投票权，反对现任董事或调整高管薪
酬。
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors relevant to a company’s
business can provide essential insights into management effectiveness and thus a
company’s long-term prospects. We look to see that a company is attuned to the key
factors that contribute to long-term growth: sustainability of the business model and
its operations, attention to external and environmental factors that could impact the
company, and recognition of the company’s role as a member of the communities in
which it operates. A global company needs to be local in every single one of its
markets.
与公司业务相关的环境、社会和治理(ESG)因素可以提供关于管理效率的基
本见解，从而为公司的长期前景提供基本见解。我们期望看到，一家公司能
够适应促进长期增长的关键因素: 商业模式及其运作的可持续性，对可能影响
公司的外部和环境因素的关注，以及对公司作为其运作所在社区成员的作用
的认可。一家跨国公司需要在其每一个市场都是本地化的。
BlackRock also engages to understand a company’s priorities for investing for long-
term growth, such as research, technology and, critically, employee development and
long-term financial wellbeing. The events of the past year have only reinforced how
critical the well-being of a company’s employees is to its long-term success.
贝莱德还致力于了解公司投资于长期增长的优先事项，例如研究、技术，以及
(关键的)员工发展和长期财务福利。过去一年发生的事件只是强化了员工福祉对
公司长期成功的重要性。
Companies have begun to devote greater attention to these issues of long-term
sustainability, but despite increased rhetorical commitment, they have continued to
engage in buybacks at a furious pace. In fact, for the 12 months ending in the third
quarter of 2016, the value of dividends and buybacks by S&P 500 companies
exceeded those companies’ operating profit. While we certainly support returning
excess capital to shareholders, we believe companies must balance those practices
with investment in future growth. Companies should engage in buybacks only when
they are confident that the return on those buybacks will ultimately exceed the cost
of capital and the long-term returns of investing in future growth.
企业已开始更加关注这些长期可持续性问题，但尽管口头承诺有所增加，
但它们继续以惊人的速度进行回购。事实上，在截至 2016 年第三季度的 12
个月中，标准普尔 500 指数成分股公司的股息和回购价值超过了这些公司的
营业利润。虽然我们当然支持将多余的资本返还给股东，但我们认为公司必
须在这些做法与未来增长的投资之间取得平衡。企业只有在确信回购的回报
最终将超过资本成本和投资于未来增长的长期回报时，才应进行回购。
Of course, the private sector alone is not capable of shifting the tide of short-termism
afflicting our society. We need government policy that supports these goals – including
tax reform, infrastructure investment and strengthening retirement systems.
当然，单靠私营部门无法扭转困扰我们社会的短期主义潮流。我们需要支持这
些目标的政府政策——包括税收改革、基础设施投资和加强退休制度。
As the U.S. begins to consider tax reform this year, it should seize the opportunity to
build a capital gains regime that truly rewards long-term investments over short-term
随着美国今年开始考虑税收改革，它应该抓住机遇，建立一个真正奖励长期投
资而非短期投资的资本收益机制
CEO’ letters
holdings. One year is far too short to be considered a long-term holding period.
Instead, gains should receive long-term treatment only after three years, and we
should adopt a decreasing tax rate for each year of ownership beyond that.
控股公司。一年时间太短，不能被视为长期持有期。相反，收益应该在三年
后才能得到长期处理，而且我们应该对超过三年后的每一年的所有权采取降
低税率的做法。
If tax reform also includes some form of reduced taxation for repatriation of cash
trapped overseas, BlackRock will be looking to companies’ strategic frameworks
for an explanation of whether they will bring cash back to the U.S., and if so, how
they plan to use it. Will it be used simply for more share buybacks? Or is it a part of
a capital plan that appropriately balances returning capital to shareholders with
prudently investing for future growth?
如果税收改革还包括某种形式的减税措施，以便将困在海外的现金汇回国
内，贝莱德将寻求企业的战略框架，以解释它们是否会将现金带回美国，如
果会，它们计划如何使用这些现金。它是否仅仅用于更多的股票回购？或者
它是资本计划的一部分，适当平衡返还给股东的资本和谨慎投资未来增长？
President Trump has indicated an interest in infrastructure investment, which has the
dual benefits of improving overall productivity and creating jobs, especially for workers
displaced by technology. However, while infrastructure investing can stem the flow of
job losses due to automation, it is not a solution to that problem. America’s largest
companies, many of whom are struggling with a skills gap in filling technical positions,
must improve their capacity for internal training and education to compete for talent in
today’s economy and fulfill their responsibilities to their employees. In order to fully
reap the benefits of a changing economy – and sustain growth over the long-term –
businesses will need to increase the earnings potential of the workers who drive returns,
helping the employee who once operated a machine learn to program it.
特朗普总统已表示对基础设施投资感兴趣，基础设施投资具有提高总体生产率
和创造就业机会的双重好处，尤其是对于被技术取代的工人。然而，尽管基础设
施投资可以阻止自动化造成的就业流失，但它并不能解决这个问题。美国最大的
公司，其中许多公司在填补技术职位方面的技能缺口方面苦苦挣扎，它们必须提
高内部培训和教育的能力，以便在当今经济中竞争人才，履行对员工的责任。为
了充分获得经济变化带来的好处——并在长期内保持增长——企业需要增加推动
回报的工人的收入潜力，帮助曾经操作过机器的员工学会对其进行编程。
Finally, as major participants in retirement programs in the U.S. and around the
world, companies must lend their voice to developing a more secure retirement
system for all workers, including the millions of workers at smaller companies who
are not covered by employer-provided plans. The retirement crisis is not an
intractable prob-lem. We have a wealth of tools at our disposal: autoenrollment and
auto-escalation, pooled plans for small businesses, and potentially even a
mandatory contribution model like Canada’s or Australia’s.
最后，作为美国和世界各地退休计划的主要参与者，企业必须发出自己的
声音，为所有员工建立一个更安全的退休制度，其中包括雇主提供的计划未
涵盖的小公司数百万员工。退休危机并不是一个棘手的问题。我们有大量的
工具可供使用: 自动注册和自动升级，小企业的集合计划，甚至可能像加拿大
或澳大利亚的强制性捐款模式。
Another essential ingredient will be improving employees’ understanding of how
to prepare for retirement. As stewards of their employees’ retirement plans,
companies must embrace the responsibility to build financial literacy in their
workforce, especially because employees have assumed greater responsibility
through the shift from tradi-tional pensions to defined contribution plans. Asset
managers also have an important role in building financial literacy, but as an
industry we have done a poor job to date. Now is the time to empower savers with
new technologies and the education they need to make smart financial decisions. If
we are going to solve the retirement crisis – and help workers adjust to a globalized
world – businesses need to hold themselves to a high standard and act with the
conviction that retirement security is a matter of shared economic security.
另一个重要因素是提高员工对如何为退休做准备的理解。作为员工退休计
划的管理者，公司必须承担起培养员工金融知识的责任，特别是因为通过从
传统养老金转向固定缴款计划，员工承担了更大的责任。资产管理公司在培
养理财知识方面也扮演着重要的角色，但作为一个行业，我们迄今为止做得
很差。现在是时候用新技术和他们需要的教育来授权储蓄者做出明智的财务
决策了。如果我们要解决退休危机，并帮助工人适应全球化的世界，企业就
需要保持高标准，坚信退休保障是一个共同的经济保障问题。
That shared economic security can only be achieved through a long-term
approach by investors, companies and policymakers. As you build your strategy, it
is essential that you consider the underlying dynamics that drive change around the
world. The success of your company and global growth depend on it.
只有通过投资者、企业和政策制定者的长期努力，才能实现这种共同的经
济安全。在制定战略时，你必须考虑驱动世界各地变革的潜在动力。你公司
的成功和全球的增长都取决于它。
Sincerely,
诚挚的,
Larry Fink, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Larry Fink 董事长兼首席执行官。
Note: The full text of all Dear CEO letters can be found at https://www.BlackRock.
注意: 所有亲爱的 CEO 信件的全文可以在 https://www. BlackRock 找到。
com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter.
Com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter.
Pawliczek et al.
Appendix 2
附录 2
Table 10 Variable definitions

表 10 变量定义
Variable Definition
变量定义
Disclosure Similarity Variables

披露相似性变量
DisclosureSimilarity Similarity of text from that year’s BlackRock letter to the firm’s 8-Ks filed 30 days
披露相似性贝莱德当年的信件与该公司 30 天内提交的 8-k 文件的文本相似性
subsequent to the letter minus PriorDiscSimilarity. Similarity measures
range for further details and examples).
之后的信减去先验相似性。相似性度量范围为进一步的细节和例子)。
PriorDiscSimilarity Similarity of the text from that year’s BlackRock letter to the firm’s 8-Ks filed in
先验相似性 the 90 days prior to the letter release. Similarity measures range from zero to
one and are calculated using cosine similarity scores (see Appendix 3 for
further details and examples).
与当年贝莱德公司信函中的文本相似，该公司在信函发布前 90 天提交了
8-k 文件。相似性度量范围从 0 到 1，并使用余弦距离相似性得分计算
(更多细节和示例见附录 3)。
BlackRock Variables
贝莱德变量
BlackRockBH Indicator set equal to one if BlackRock is a blockholder (owns more than 5% of
布莱克罗克 the firm) at the end of the fiscal period immediately preceding the BlackRock
letter, zero otherwise.
指标设置为 1，如果贝莱德是一个大股东(拥有 5% 以上的公司)在财政期末
紧接着贝莱德的信，否则为零。
BlackRock% The decile rank of BlackRock’s holding interest as a percentage of all ownership
贝莱德 at the end of the fiscal period immediately preceding the BlackRock letter.
在紧接贝莱德信函之前的财政期末，贝莱德持股权益占所有权益的百分比
为 10% 。
PrivateEngagement Indicator equal to one if BlackRock privately engages with the firm in any of
私人参与 BlackRock’s three fiscal years during the period of 2018–2020 (hand-
collected from BlackRock’s website), zero otherwise.
指标等于 1，如果贝莱德在 2018-2020 年期间的三个财政年度中的任何一
个年度私下与该公司有业务往来(从贝莱德网站手工收集) ，则为 0。
Other IO
其他业务主管
StateStreetBH Indicator equal to one if State Street is a blockholder (owns more than 5% of
州立大学 the firm), zero otherwise.
如果道富银行是大股东(拥有该公司 5% 以上的股份) ，则指标等于 1，否
则为 0。
VanguardBH Indicator equal to one if Vanguard is a blockholder (owns more than 5% of the
先锋 firm), zero otherwise.
如果 Vanguard 是一个大股东(拥有公司 5% 以上的股份) ，则指标等于 1，
否则为 0。
StateStreet% 州立大街
The decile rank of of all ownership at the end of the fiscal period immediately preceding the
State Street’s BlackRock letter.
holding interest 道富银行持股权益占所有所有权的百分比在贝莱德信之前的财政期间结束时的
as a percentage 十分位数。
Vanguard% The decile rank of Vanguard’s holding interest as a percentage of all ownership
先锋 at the end of the fiscal period immediately preceding the BlackRock letter.
在贝莱德信函发出之前的财政年度末，先锋集团的持股权益占所有股权的
百分比为 10% 。
NumberBH Total number of blockholders as of the fiscal period ending immediately prior to the letter.
数字截至信函发出前的财政期间截止的大宗股东总数。
IO Total institutional ownership (%) as of the fiscal period ending immediately
木卫一 prior to the letter.
截至信函发出前的财政期间，机构所有权总额(%)。
8-K controls
8-K 控制器
Item202 Indicator set equal to one if the firm filed an Item 2.02 8-K in the 30 days
项目 202 subsequent to the letter, zero otherwise.
如果公司在信函发出后的 30 天内提交了项目 2.028-k，则指标设置为 1，
否则为 0。
如果公司在信函发出后的 30 天内提交了 7.018-k 条目，则指标设置为 1，
否则为 0。
如果该公司在信函发出后的 30 天内提交了第 8.018-k 项，则指标设置为 1，
否则为 0。
Number8Ks Number of 8-Ks filed in the 30 days subsequent to the letter and included in
数字 8k the calculation of DisclosureSimilarity.
在信函发出后 30 天内提交并列入披露相似性计算的 8-k 的数目。
PriorNumber8Ks Number of 8-Ks filed in the 90 days prior to the letter and included in the
先验数字 8k calculation of PriorDiscSimilarity.
在信函发出前 90 天内提交并列入优先相似性计算的 8-k 的数目。
Other Outcome Variables
其他结果变量
BlackRockOppose
Indicator set equal to one if BlackRock votes against management for any
shareholder proposals in the annual meeting immediately following the letter,
如果贝莱德在紧接上述信件之后的年度股东大会上投票反对管理层的任何提议，则黑石反对指
标设定为等于 1,
CEO’ letters
Table 10 (continued)
表 10(续)
Variable Definition
变量定义
zero otherwise (i.e., excluding management proposals whose ISS codes start
with M).
零(即不包括国际空间站编码以 m 开头的管理建议)。
BlackRockOpposeES Indicator set equal to one if BlackRock votes against management for any
environmental or social proposals in the annual meeting immediately following
the letter, zero otherwise. We identify environmental and social proposals
following He et al. (2020).
BlackRockOpposeES 指标等于 1，如果 BlackRock 在紧接着的年度会议上投票反对任何环境或社会
建议，否则为 0。在 He 等人(2020)之后，我们确定了环境和社会建议。
BlackRockOpposePY
Indicator set equal to one if BlackRock votes against management in the prior
year’s annual meeting. Proposals included are all shareholder and
environmental/social proposals for the BlackRockOppose and
BlackRockOpposeES analyses, respec-tively.
如果贝莱德在前一年的年度会议上投票反对管理层，则该指标等于 1。提案包括所有的股东和环境/
社会提案，分别为 BlackRockOppose 和 BlackRockOpposeES 的分析。
LobbySimilarity
Similarity of the text from the BlackRock letter to the text from corporate
lobbying filings in quarters t + 1, t + 2, and t + 3 minus LobbySimilarityPY.
Similarity measures range from zero to one and are calculated using cosine
similarity scores (see Appendix 3 for further details and examples).
游说相似性贝莱德信的文本与公司游说文件的文本的相似性分别是 t + 1，t + 2，t + 3 减去游说相
似性。相似性度量范围从 0 到 1，并使用余弦距离相似性得分计算(更多细
节和示例见附录 3)。
LobbySimilarityPY
The similarity of the text of the BlackRock letter to the lobby filings from the
previous three quarters. Similarity measures range from zero to one and are
calculated using cosine similarity scores (see Appendix 3 for further details and
examples).
游说相似性贝莱德信件的文本与前三个季度的游说文件的相似性。相似性度量范围从 0 到 1，并使
用余弦距离相似性得分计算(更多细节和示例见附录 3)。
MDA_Similarity
Similarity of the text from the BlackRock letter to the MD&A for 10-Ks filed
subsequent to the letter minus the similarity of the text from the BlackRock
letter to the MD&A from the prior year’s 10-K. Similarity measures range from
zero to one and are calculated using cosine similarity scores (see Appendix 3 for
further details and examples).
黑石公司信函与后来提交的 10-k 的 md & a 文本的相似性减去黑石公司信函与 md & a 文本与前一
年 10-k 文本的相似性。相似性度量范围从 0 到 1，并使用余弦距离相似性
得分计算(更多细节和示例见附录 3)。
RiskFactor_Similarity
Similarity of the text from the BlackRock letter to the risk factor disclosures
identified from 10-Ks filed subsequent to the letter minus the similarity of the
text of the BlackRock letter to the risk factor disclosures from the prior year’s
10-K. Similarity measures range from zero to one and are calculated using
cosine similarity scores (see Appendix 3 for further details and examples).
风险因素 _ 相似性贝莱德信函案文与该信函之后提交的 10-k 所确定的风险因素披露的相似性减去
贝莱德信函案文与前一年 10-k 所披露的风险因素的相似性。相似性度量
范围从 0 到 1，并使用余弦距离相似性得分计算(更多细节和示例见附录 3)。
Control Variables
控制变量
AbnRet 阿布雷特
returns over the 365 days prior to the letter.
Abnormal
buy and hold 信函发出前 365 天内的异常买入和持有退货。
AnalystFollow Log of one plus the number of analysts following the firm at the end of the
分析师跟进 fiscal period immediately preceding the BlackRock letter.
1 的日志加上在贝莱德信函之前的财政期末跟踪该公司的分析师人数。
BlackRockOwn Log of dollar value of BlackRock ownership.
黑石镇贝莱德所有权美元价值日志。
Cash Cash holdings at the end of the fiscal period immediately prior to the
现金 BlackRock letter.
在贝莱德信函之前的财政期间结束时持有的现金。
Employees Log of employees from Compustat for the year preceding the letter.
雇员 Compustat 上一年度员工日志。
HHI The Herfindahl sales concentration index calculated using two-digit SIC
嗨 industry for the quarter ending immediately preceding the BlackRock letter.
Herfindahl 销售集中度指数使用两位数的 SIC 行业数据计算出的结束于贝
莱德信之前的季度。
Lawsuit Indicator set equal to one if the firm faced a class-action lawsuit in the year
诉讼 preceding the BlackRock letter, zero otherwise.
如果该公司在贝莱德信函发出的前一年面临集体诉讼，则指标设置为 1，
否则为 0。
Leverage Total liabilities divided by total assets for the period ending immediately prior
杠杆 to the letter.
负债总额除以信件发出前截止期间的总资产。
Loss Indicator set equal to one if the firm has negative net income for the
损失 period immediately preceding the letter.
如果公司在信函发出之前的一段时间内净收益为负，则该指标设置
为 1。
Marketshare Firm’s market share using two-digit SIC industry, as of the period ending
市场份额 immedi-ately prior to the letter.
公司的市场份额使用两位数的 SIC 行业，截止到刚刚结束的时期，在信件
之前。
Marketshare_sq Marketshare, squared.
市场份额市场份额，平方。
MTB The ratio of market value of equity to book value of equity, calculated at the end
山地车 of the fiscal period immediately preceding the letter.
股本市值与股本账面价值的比率，计算于紧接信函之前的财政期末。
A.
Pawliczek
et al.
A.
Pawliczek
1128 et al.
Table 10
(continued)
表 10(续)
Variable Definition
变量 Definition 定义
Log of market value of equity, calculated at the end of the
MVE fiscal period immediately
MVE 股票市场价值日志，在财政期间结束时立即计算
preceding the letter.
在信的前面。
Log of the number of proposals voted on during that
Nproposals year’s annual meeting
建议书在当年的年度会议上投票通过的提案数目的记录
Percentage of BlackRock votes made by ETFs (passive
funds with name iShares)
PctPassive Etf (名为 iShares 的被动型基金)获得贝莱德投票的百
PctPassive 被动分比
during that year’s shareholder meeting.
在当年的股东大会上。
Percentage of proposals that are shareholder proposals
(excluding ISS codes starting
PctShareholder 作为股东建议的建议的百分比(不包括开始的 ISS 代
公司股东码)
with M) from that year’s shareholder meeting.
在当年的股东大会上。
Percentage of proposals that qualify as environmental and
PctEnvSocial social from that year’s
PctEnvSocial 从当年起符合环境和社会条件的建议的百分比
shareholder meeting. We identify environmental and
social proposals following
股东大会。我们确定了以下环境和社会建议
He et al. (2020).
He 等(2020)。
Net income scaled by total assets for the period ending
immediately preceding the
ROA 按资产总额比例计算的截至 2001 年 12 月 31 日为止的
ROA 期间的净收入
letter.
信。
Indicator set equal to one if the firm is a member of the
S&P 500 index at the end of
S&P500 如果该公司是标准普尔 500 指数成分股，则该指标设
标普 500 指数置为 1
the fiscal period immediately preceding the letter, zero
otherwise.
紧接字母之前的财政期间，否则为零。
Log of sales for the quarter immediately preceding the
Sales letter.
销售额信前一个季度的销售记录。
Number of segments reported in Compustat. To reflect
Segments segment reporting under
片段在 Compustat 中报告的段数
ASC 280, we include operating segments when
populated, and business segments
ASC 280，我们包括操作部分时，填充，和业务部分
otherwise.
否则。
Indicator equal to one if the firm is in a sensitive industry
Sensitive following Julio and Yook
Industry 如果该公司在 Julio 和 Yook 之后的敏感行业，则指标
敏感行业等于 1
(2012), zero otherwise. This includes the following
Fama-French 49 industries:
(2012) ，否则为零。这包括以下 Fama-French 49 产
业:
Beer (4), Tobacco (5), Gold (27), Mining (28), Coal
(29), Oil (30). We addi-
啤酒(4) ，烟草(5) ，黄金(27) ，矿业(28) ，煤炭
(29) ，石油(30)
tionally designate firms in Transportation (41) and
Banking (45).
定期指定运输(41)和银行(45)公司。
Standard deviation of daily returns over the 365 days prior
to the BlackRock letter.
StdRet 贝莱德(BlackRock)信函发出前 365 天内每日回报率的
斯德雷特标准差。
SupportsDemoc Indicator equal to one if more than 75% of the firm’s
rats political contributions go to
支持民主党指标等于一，如果超过 75% 的公司的政治捐款
Democrats in the fourth quarter of the year preceding the
letter, zero otherwise.
民主党人在去年第四季度收到了这封信，否则就是
零。
Appendix 3
附录三
Similarity measures – simple example

相似性度量-简单的例子
We create both the DisclosureSimilarity and the LobbySimilarity measures using cosine
similarity scores. This approach is commonly used in natural language processing, and
is highlighted by Loughran and McDonald (2016) as being commonly used in ac-
counting and finance. For example, Brown and Tucker (2011), Hoberg and Phillips
(2018), Merkley (2014), and Dyer et al. (2017) each use cosine similarity scores in their
respective studies of quarterly and annual reports.
我们使用余弦距离相似度分数来创建公开相似度和大堂相似度度量。这种方法通
常用于自然语言处理，并被 Loughran 和 McDonald (2016)强调为会计和金融领域
的常用方法。例如，Brown 和 Tucker (2011)、 Hoberg 和 Phillips (2018)、 Merkley
(2014)和 Dyer 等人(2017)在各自的季度和年度报告研究中都使用了余弦距离分数。
Cosine similarity scores for any two texts are created by calculating the cosine of
the angle between the two n-dimensional vectors, where n is the total number of
unique words from the texts. These vectors contain the frequency of occur-rence of
each word in the respective texts. In our study, we create Disclosure-Similarity by
comparing firms’ 8-K disclosures to the preceding BlackRock letter.31 We first
remove headers, punctuation, and English stop words from all
通过计算两个 n 维向量之间夹角的余弦距离得到任意两个文本的余弦相似
度分数，其中 n 是文本中唯一单词的总数。这些向量包含每个单词在相应文
本中出现的频率。在我们的研究中，我们通过比较公司的 8-k 信息披露和之
前的 BlackRock 信息，创建了披露相似性。我们首先从所有的信息中删除标
题、标点符号和英文停止词
31LobbySimilarity is calculated by comparing firms’ lobbying disclosures (as reporting by

Lobbyview.org) to the BlackRock letter.
LobbySimilarity 是通过比较公司的游说披露(如 lobbyview. org 报道)和贝莱德信函来计算的。
CEO’ letters
texts and convert all words to lower case. We then use the scikit-learn count
vectorizer package in Python to create vectors of word counts. Formally,
DisclosureSimilarity for 8-K disclosures for firm i and the preceding BlackRock
letter j is calculated as follows:
把所有的单词都转换成小写。然后我们使用 scikit-learn count vectorizer 包在
Python 中创建字数向量。形式上，公司 i 和之前的 BlackRock 字母 j 的 8-k 披
露的相似性计算如下:
cos
因 Vi V j
为θ Vi v j
Þ
¼
ー1
ð ー4
jj Vijj jV
jj
小 jj 小 jj
where the numerator is the dot product of the two word vectors, and the denom-
inator represents the length of the vectors. Because similarity scores are created
using non-negative word counts, they range between zero and one and are
increasing in similarity between the texts. If the two texts are completely non-
overlapping, the vectors will be orthogonal and the cosine of the angle will be zero.
If the texts contain the same words in similar proportions, the vectors will be
oriented in the same direction in space. The angle between these two word vectors
will approach zero, and the cosine of that angle will approach one.
其中分子是两个单词向量的点积，而分母表示向量的长度。因为相似度分数
是使用非负数字计数创建的，它们的范围在 0 到 1 之间，并且文本之间的相
似度在增加。如果两个文本完全不重叠，向量将是正交的，角度的余弦将为
零。如果文本中包含相同比例的单词，那么向量在空间中的方向是相同的。
这两个词向量之间的夹角将接近于零，而夹角的余弦将接近于一。
Simple Illustrative Example

简单说明例子
Assume there is one BlackRock letter and we are studying 8-K disclosures for two
firms. The texts contain only the following sentences:
假设有一封贝莱德的信，我们正在研究两家公司的 8-k 披露。这些文本只包
含以下句子:
BlackRock letter text = Infrastructure, trade, and globalization are important.
基础设施、贸易和全球化都很重要。
Firm A’s 8-K text = Net income was better than expected.
公司 a 的 8-k 文本 = 净收益好于预期。
Firm B’s 8-K text = The Company believes income is important. The Company
also believes that infrastructure, trade, and globalization are important.
公司 b 的 8-k 文本 = 公司认为收入很重要。该公司还认为，基础设施、贸
易和全球化都很重要。
After we remove stop words, the 10 dimensions on which the texts can be
measured are infrastructure, trade, globalization, important, net, income, better,
expected, believes, and company. The word vectors for each text are represented
below.
在我们删除句号后，文本可以衡量的 10 个维度是基础设施、贸易、全球化、
重要性、净收入、更好、期望、信念和公司。每个文本的词向量如下所示。
BlackRock = [1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0].
贝莱德 = [1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]。
Firm A = [0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,0].
公司 a = [0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,0]。
Firm B = [1,1,1,2,0,1,0,0,2,2].
Firm b = [1,1,1,2,0,1,0,0,2,2].
The cosine of the angle between the BlackRock vector and the Firm A vector
(representing the similarity between the BlackRock letter and Firm A’s disclosure)
is 0, while the cosine of the angle between the BlackRock vector and the Firm B
vector (representing the similarity between the BlackRock letter and Firm B’s
disclosure) is 0.625. While not directly relevant to the measures used in this study,
the cosine similarity score for Firm A’s and Firm B’s disclosures is 0.125.
BlackRock 向量和 Firm a 向量之间夹角的余弦(代表 BlackRock 信函和 Firm
a 披露的相似性)为 0，而 BlackRock 向量和 Firm b 向量之间夹角的余弦(代表
BlackRock 信函和 Firm b 披露的相似性)为 0.625。虽然与本研究中使用的测
量方法没有直接相关性，但公司 a 和公司 b 披露的余弦距离得分为 0.125。
Appendix 4
附录 4
Distribution of 8-K item numbers

8-K 项目编号的分布
Pre-Period 8-Ks: Post-Period 8-Ks:

前期 8-k: 后期 8-k:
10 Most Frequent Items

and Descriptions
10 个最常见的项目和描
述
Pre-
预 Post-
览邮局
Perio
Item Description d Period
项目描述句号句号
Item
9.01
第 Financial Statements and
9.01 Exhibits
项财务报表及展品 0.416 0.415
Item
2.02 Results of Operations and
项目 Financial Condition
2.02 经营成果和财务状况 0.257 0.207
Item
7.01
第
7.01 Regulation FD Disclosure
项规例 FD 披露 0.104 0.117
Item Other Events 0.103 0.112
8.01 其他活动
第
8.01
项
Item
1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive
项目 Agreement
1.01 缔结实质性最终协定 0.051 0.063
Item
2.03
第 Creation of a Direct Financial
2.03 Obligation
项设立直接金融债务 0.020 0.027
Item
5.03
第 Amendments to Articles of
5.03 Incorporation or Bylaws
项公司章程或附则的修改 0.014 0.015
Submission of Matters to a
Vote of Security
将事项提交证券投票
Item
5.07
项目 Holders
5.07 持有人 0.011 0.013
Item
2.01 Completion of Acquisition or
项目 Disposition of Assets
2.01 完成资产的收购或处置 0.007 0.009
Item
3.02
第 Unregistered Sales of Equity
3.02 Securities
项未经登记的股权证券销售 0.007 0.007
Other All other items
其他所有其他物品 0.011 0.014
Fig. 3 Panel A: Percentage of All 8-K Items

图 3 面板 a: 所有 8-k 项目的百分比
CEO’ letters
Table 11 Panel B: Percentage of Firm-Years, Pre- vs. Post-Period.

表 11 b 小组: 公司年份的百分比，前后期。
Pct of Firm-Years with 8-K

8-K Item Items
8-K 项目公司年度 8-k 项目的百分比
Pre-Period Post-Period Difference
前期句号后差异
Item 9.01
第 9.01 项 0.772 0.778 0.006
**
*
Item 2.02 **
项目 2.02 0.386 0.480 0.094 *
**
*
Item 7.01 −0.024 **
第 7.01 项 0.218 0.194 -0.024 *
**
*
Item 8.01 −0.015 **
第 8.01 项 0.209 0.194 ー0.015 *
**
*
Item 1.01 −0.022 **
项目 1.01 0.118 0.095 -0.022 *
**
*
Item 2.03 −0.014 **
第 2.03 项 0.051 0.037 ー0.014 *
Item 5.03 −0.003
第 5.03 项 0.028 0.025 0.003
Item 5.07 −0.003
项目 5.07 0.024 0.021 0.003 *
Item 2.01 −0.004 **
项目 2.01 0.017 0.013 0.004 **
Item 3.02
第 3.02 项 0.012 0.013 0.001
**
*
Other −0.006 **
其他 0.027 0.021 0.006 *
Note: Panel A of Appendix 4 depicts the percentage of all 8-K items by 8-K item number in both the 90-
day pre-period window and 30-day post-period window (each column adds up to one). Panel B tabulates
the percentage of firms reporting each item number in the same pre- and post-period windows.
Differences in means are tabulated with ***, **, and *, representing significance levels of 1%, 5%, and
10%, respectively. We report the 10 most frequently occurring item numbers. The remaining items are
grouped in the other category. A complete list of item descriptions can be found here:
https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/ answersform8khtm.html
注: 附录 4 的 a 小组按 90 天期前窗口和 30 天期后窗口的 8-k 项目编号表示所有 8-k 项目的百分比
(每栏加起来为 1)。面板 b 列出了在相同的前期和后期窗口中报告每个项目数量的公司的百分比。
平均值的差异以 * * * 、 * * 和 * 表示，分别代表 1% 、5% 和 10% 的显著性水平。我们报告了 10
个最常见的项目编号。其余项目归入另一个类别。完整的项目描述列表可以在这里找到 :
https://www.sec. gov/fast-answers/answersform8khtm. html
Appendix 5
附录 5
Example disclosures
披露范例
The Coca-Cola Company, 8-K, February 9, 2017.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/21344/000002134417000003/
可口可乐公司， 8-K ， 2017 年 2 月 9 日 https://www.sec.
gov/archives/edgar/data/21344/0000021341700003/
0000021344-17-000003-index.htm
000021344-17-000003-index. htm
Advancing sustainable business practices: We continued to advance
sustainability investments around the world. During the quarter, we announced a
combined pledge with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) of
up to $22 million to support the next five-year phase of USAID’s Water and
Development Alliance (WADA). This initiative aims to provide safe water access
and sanitation to commu-nities in developing nations in Africa, the Middle East,
Asia, and Latin America. During the first phase of this partnership from 2005 to
2017, 35 projects were implemented in 30 different countries. By the end of 2015,
these projects had yielded improved water access to over 600,000 people and
improved sanitation for over 250,000 people.
推进可持续发展的商业实践: 我们继续在世界各地推进可持续发展投资。本
季度，我们宣布与美国国际开发署(USAID)共同承诺提供高达 2200 万美元的
资金，用于支持美国国际开发署水与发展联盟(WADA)下一个五年阶段的工
作。该倡议旨在为非洲、中东、亚洲和拉丁美洲的发展中国家的社区提供安
全饮用水和卫生设施。在这一伙伴关系的第一阶段，从 2005 年到 2017 年，
在 30 个不同的国家实施了 35 个项目。到 2015 年底，这些项目改善了 60 多
万人的用水条件，改善了 25 多万人的现代化厕所设备。
Honeywell International Inc., 8-K, January 26, 2018.

译自: 美国《科学》杂志网站(https://www.sec.
0000930413-18-000180-index.htm
0000930413-18-000180-index. htm
Our strong performance in 2017, together with the enactment of new U.S. tax
legislation, has enabled us to increase our 401(k) match in the U.S. This is a sustained,
我们在 2017 年的强劲表现，加上美国新税法的颁布，使我们能够增加在美国
的 401(k)养老金比例。这是一个持续的,
annual benefit that will provide a more secure retirement for our employees. We
believe that enhancing this benefit is extremely valuable and important to our em-
ployees over the long term, Adamczyk concluded.
年度福利，将提供更安全的退休我们的雇员。我们相信，从长远来看，提高
这项福利对于我们的员工来说是非常有价值和重要的。
The Company recorded a provisional charge of $3.8 billion in the fourth quarter
to reflect the estimated impacts of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017,
including the U.S. tax on deemed repatriated earnings of non-U.S. subsid-iaries, the
writedown of net U.S. deferred tax liabilities at lower enacted corpo-rate tax rates,
and the effects of the implementation of the territorial tax system. The impacts of
the legislation may differ from this estimate, possibly materially (and the amount of
the provisional charge may accordingly be adjusted over the course of 2018), due to
changes in interpretations and assumptions the Company has made, guidance that
may be issued, and actions the Company may take as a result of the tax legislation.
Honeywell has been a strong supporter of this legislation and is encouraged by the
significantly enhanced capital mobility, lower U.S. corporate income tax rates, and
more appealing investment environ-ment in the U.S., which the legislation enables.
该公司在第四季度记录了 38 亿美元的临时支出，以反映 2017 年《美国减
税和就业法案》(u.s. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017)的估计影响，包括美国对非
美国补贴公司的视为汇回的收入征税、按较低的公司税率减记美国递延税款
净额、以及实施地域税收制度的影响。由于公司所作的解释和假设、可能发
布的指导意见以及公司可能根据税收立法采取的行动的变化，立法的影响可
能与这一估计有所不同，可能是实质性的(临时收费的金额可能在 2018 年期
间相应调整)。霍尼韦尔一直是这项立法的坚定支持者，并受到资本流动性显
著增强、美国企业所得税率较低以及美国投资环境更具吸引力的鼓舞。
W.R. Grace & Co. 8-K, February 7, 2019.

译自: 美国《科学》杂志网站(http://www.sec.
gov/archives/edgar/data/1045309/000104530919000002/)
0001045309-19-000002-index.htm
0001045309-19-000002-index. htm
Delivering on Our Strategic Initiatives: I’m pleased with our strong 2018
performance. Our team delivered double-digit sales and earnings growth, and
significantly improved our ability to consistently deliver profitable growth, said
Hudson La Force, Grace’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Our recent
investments to accelerate growth and extend our competitive advantages are
producing results. I’m upbeat about 2019 and expect another year of solid demand
for our high-value technologies with expanding margins and double-digit Adjusted
EPS growth.
实施我们的战略计划: 我对我们 2018 年的强劲表现感到高兴。Grace 的总
裁兼首席执行官 Hudson La Force 表示，我们的团队实现了两位数的销售额和
盈利增长，并显著提高了我们持续实现盈利增长的能力。我们最近在加速增
长和扩大竞争优势方面的投资正在产生效果。我对 2019 年持乐观态度，并预
计明年我们的高价值技术将有稳定的需求，利润率将不断扩大，每股收益将
实现两位数的调整增长。
Grace’s strategic framework for profitable growth includes four elements:
Grace 的盈利增长战略框架包括四个要素:
& Invest to accelerate growth and extend our competitive advantages

投资促进经济增长，扩大竞争优势
& Invest in great people to strengthen our high-performance culture
投资优秀人才，强化高绩效企业文化
& Execute the Grace Value Model to drive operating excellence
执行 Grace Value 模型来推动卓越的运营
& Acquire to build our technology and manufacturing capabilities for our customers.
为客户建立我们的技术和制造能力。
Costco Wholesale Corp., 10-K Risk Factor Disclosure, 2017.

好市多批发公司， 10-K 风险因素披露， 2017. https://www.sec.
0000909832-18-000013-index.htm
000909832-18-000013-index. htm
Our members are increasingly using mobile phones, tablets, computers, and
other devices to shop and to interact with us through social media. We are making
technology investments in our websites and mobile applications. If we are unable to
make, improve, or develop relevant member-facing technology in a timely manner,
our ability to compete and our results of operations could be adversely affected.
我们的会员越来越多地使用手机、平板电脑、电脑和其他设备来购物，并
通过社交媒体与我们互动。我们正在对我们的网站和移动应用程序进行技术
投资。如果我们不能及时制造、改进或开发面向成员的相关技术，我们的竞
争能力和运营结果可能会受到不利影响。
Note: Appendix 5 contains representative excerpts from three sample firms’ 8-Ks
and one sample firm’s 10-K risk factor disclosure. Each of these disclosures reflects
an increase in similarity to the corresponding BlackRock letter.
注: 附录 5 包含三个样本公司的 8-k 和一个样本公司的 10-k 风险因素披露
的代表性摘录。每一个披露都反映了与贝莱德相应的信件的相似性的增加。
CEO’ letters
Appendix 6
附录 6
Table 12 Firm descriptives by PrivateEngagement

表 12 按私人参与情况分列的公司描述
PrivateEngagement PrivateEngagem
Variable =0 ent= 1
变量私人订婚 = 0 私人参与 = 1
Differenc
Mean Mean e
N 刻薄 N 刻薄差异
DisclosureSimilari
ty 5,009 −0.037 2,891 −0.046 −0.009
披露相似性 5,009 ー0.037 2891 ー0.046 -0.009
**
*
BlackRockBH 5,009 2,891 **
布莱克罗克 5,009 0.520 2891 0.832 0.312 *
**
*
BlackRock% 5,009 2,891 **
贝莱德 5,009 4.844 2891 6.637 1.793 *
**
*
StateStreetBH 5,009 2,891 **
州立大学 5,009 0.095 2891 0.264 0.169 *
**
*
VanguardBH 5,009 2,891 **
先锋 5,009 0.437 2891 0.790 0.353 *
**
*
StateStreet% 5,009 2,891 **
州立大街 5,009 4.611 2891 7.006 2.395 *
**
*
Vanguard% 5,009 2,891 **
先锋 5,009 4.742 2891 6.814 2.072 *
NumberBH 5,009 2,891
数字 5,009 3.082 2891 3.576 0.493
5,009 2,891 **
IO 5,009 0.700 2891 0.876 0.176 *
木卫一 **
*
**
*
MVE 5,009 2,891 **
MVE 5,009 6.420 2891 8.204 1.785 *
MTB 5,009 2,891
山地车 5,009 3.094 2891 3.636 0.542 *
**
*
Leverage 5,009 2,891 **
杠杆 5,009 0.602 2891 0.617 0.015 *
**
*
AnalystFollow 5,009 2,891 **
分析师跟进 5,009 0.798 2891 0.909 0.111 *
**
*
S&P500 5,009 2,891 **
标普 500 指数 5,009 0.057 2891 0.328 0.271 *
**
*
ROA 5,009 −0.015 2,891 **
ROA 5,009 ー0.015 2891 0.000 0.015 *
**
−0.080 *
Loss 5,009 2,891 ー **
损失 5,009 0.363 2891 0.283 0.080 *
AbnRet 5,009 −0.015 2,891
阿布雷特 5,009 ー0.015 2891 0.011 0.026
**
*
StdRet 5,009 2,891 −0.006 **
斯德雷特 5,009 0.028 2891 0.022 0.006 *
**
*
Lawsuit 5,009 2,891 **
诉讼 5,009 0.034 2891 0.044 0.010 *
Note: Appendix 6 contains descriptive statistics for key variables from Table 4 split on whether
BlackRock privately engages with firms using two PrivateEngagement variable calculations.
PrivateEngagement is defined as an indicator equal to one if BlackRock engages with the firm in any of
its disclosed fiscal years (2018, 2019, 2020), zero otherwise. ***, **, and * represent significance levels
of 1%, 5%, and 10%, respectively, for differences in means
注: 附录 6 包含了关键变量的描述统计学，这些变量来自于表 4 中关于 BlackRock 是否使用两个
private engagement 变量计算私下与公司进行接触的划分。私人参与被定义为一个指标，如果贝莱
德在任何披露的财政年度(2018 年、2019 年、2020 年)与该公司进行了合作，则该指标等于 1，否
则为零。* * * ，* * 和 * 分别代表 1% ，5% 和 10% 的显著性水平，用于表示手段上的差异
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A. Pawliczek et al.
Affiliations
从属关系
Andrea Pawliczek1 & A. Nicole Skinner2 & Laura A. Wellman3

妮可 ·斯金纳和劳拉 ·a ·威尔曼
Andrea Pawliczek
安德烈 ·波利切克
andrea.pawliczek@colorado.edu
Andrea.pawliczek@colorado. edu
A. Nicole Skinner
A 妮可 ·斯金纳
nikki.skinner@uga.edu
Nikki skinner@uga.edu
1
Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado at Boulder, 419 UCB, 995 Regent Drive,
Boulder, CO 80305, USA
利兹商学院，科罗拉多大学博尔德分校，419 UCB，995 摄政道，博尔德，co80305，美国科罗
拉多州
2
University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
乔治亚大学，雅典，GA 30602，美国
3
Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA
斯迈尔商学院，宾夕法尼亚州立大学，宾夕法尼亚州立大学，宾夕法尼亚州立大学，美国

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A new take on voice the influence of BlackRock's 'Dear CEO' letters - 【彩云小译】

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Review of Accounting Studies (2021) 26:1088–1136

A new take on voice: the influence of

Andrea Pawliczek1 & A. Nicole Skinner2 & Laura A. Wellman3

Accepted: 3 May 2021/ Published online: 27 August 2021

Extended author information available on the last page of the article

We begin by studying the relation between changes in firms’ public disclosures

similarity, compared to firms of which BlackRock is not a blockholder. This result

These findings are important, considering BlackRock’s increasing discussion of

The role of institutional owners in monitoring portfolio firms depends on the

6 See https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter for letters. We

advocate for a wide range of issues, including work-retraining, healthcare, and

7 As reported on December 31, 2019.

3 Data and measurement

3.1 Key variable definitions

3.1.1 Measurement of BlackRock ownership

3.1.2 Measurement of firms’ disclosure response

If firms respond to BlackRock’s letters by discussing topics outlined in the letter

9 See Appendix 2 for a complete list of variable definitions.

Appendix 5, we provide examples of post-letter 8-K disclosures that include a policy-

B: Topic Counts by DisclosureSimilarity

4.1 Firms’ disclosure response

To evaluate disclosure similarity for BlackRock-owned firms during the post-letter

DisclosureSimilarity ¼ α þ β1BlackRockOwnershipi;t þ ∑δ Controlsi;t þ γFE

where the dependent variable, DisclosureSimilarity, is measured as the similarity

4.2 Voting outcomes for firms responding through disclosure

To investigate this question, we obtain data on shareholder proposals, including

BlackRock Oppose ¼ α þ β1Disclosure Similarity þ ∑δ

4.3 Firms’ public policy response

Β3 支持民主党; t + ∑ δ 控制 si; t + γFE + ε ー3þ

The dependent variable, LobbySimilarity, is measured as the similarity between the

28Republicans: https://www.gop.com/platform/. Democrats: https://democrats.org/where-we-

þ B2S&P500i:t *BlackRockOwnershipi;t þ β3S&P500i;t

þ ∑δ Controlsi;t þ γFE þ ε ð4Þ

5.2 Robustness to alternative pre-period definitions

Table 7 S&P500 and disclosure response to BlackRock letters

Note: Table 7 presents the results from an

5.3 Robustness to alternative public disclosures

We examine whether broad-based public engagement by BlackRock influences the disclosure

Further, BlackRock appears to value these additional disclosures, as evidenced by its

Note: Table 9 contains the results of regressions of MDA_Similarity and RiskFactor_Similarity on

BlackRock’s 2017 ‘Dear CEO’ letter

Table 10 Variable definitions

Disclosure Similarity Variables

Similarity measures – simple example

31LobbySimilarity is calculated by comparing firms’ lobbying disclosures (as reporting by

Simple Illustrative Example

Distribution of 8-K item numbers

Pre-Period 8-Ks: Post-Period 8-Ks:

10 Most Frequent Items

Fig. 3 Panel A: Percentage of All 8-K Items

Table 11 Panel B: Percentage of Firm-Years, Pre- vs. Post-Period.

Pct of Firm-Years with 8-K

The Coca-Cola Company, 8-K, February 9, 2017.

Honeywell International Inc., 8-K, January 26, 2018.

W.R. Grace & Co. 8-K, February 7, 2019.

& Invest to accelerate growth and extend our competitive advantages

Costco Wholesale Corp., 10-K Risk Factor Disclosure, 2017.

Table 12 Firm descriptives by PrivateEngagement