Muslu, Volkan2018-11-302018-11-30May 20182018-05May 2018http://hdl.handle.net/10657/3475I study whether and how firms change their investments based on information in their peers’ management discussion and analysis disclosures (PMD&As). PMD&As may change firms’ investments by providing information about the industry’s growth prospects (industry effects hypothesis) or competitive pressures (competition effects hypothesis). I find a positive association between changes in firms’ future investments and the change in the tone of PMD&As, consistent with the industry effects hypothesis. This association is stronger in settings of homogenous environments, smaller firm size, and poor firm performance, while it is weaker in settings of low-quality PMD&As. Moreover, firms alter their short-run investments based on PMD&As, and investments that deviate from the peers’ tone damage firm values. Additional analyses show that competition-related topics in PMD&As adversely affects firms’ investment decisions. Overall, my findings show that firms actively change their investments based on information provided by PMD&As.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).Peer effectsManagement discussion and analysisManagementTextual analysis2018-11-30Thesisborn digital