Information Uncertainty, Information Asymmetry and Growth Options

Information uncertainty has been an old topic in finance literature. Information uncertainty means ambiguity about a firm’s fundamental value, which may arise from two conventional sources: 1) characteristics of the business or industry, and 2) the company’s disclosure policy. The first source related to growth options and second source related to information asymmetry. From investors’ perspective the mechanisms and outcomes of every source are quite different. In this research we use from earning forecast dispersion as a proxy for measuring information uncertainty. We use stock turnover and price impact as proxies for information asymmetry. To control firm’s growth options, we use firm age, market-to-book ratio, and capital expenditure over total assets and Tobin’s Q. We use panel data regression model to analyze information. Our results indicate that information uncertainty has a positive relationship with information asymmetry and growth options.