Who Uses Financial Statements? A Demographic Analysis of Financial Statement Downloads from EDGAR

We link EDGAR requests for financial statements originating from a particular U.S. ZIP code to demographic characteristics of that ZIP code. We focus on four demographics: income, household characteristics, education, and local conditions. Overall, we find each of the four demographics explain significant cross-sectional variation in EDGAR financial statement use. On a relative basis, we find that education has significantly more explanatory power for financial statement usage than does income or household characteristics. In our examination of specific demographic factors, we find that EDGAR financial statement usage is higher in areas with major cities, more accounting and finance jobs, higher capital gains and dividend income, greater access to broadband internet, a top 100 business school, or higher rates of college-educated residents. Usage is lower in ZIP codes with more fixed income, business income, retirees, unemployed workers, homeowners, or households with children. Overall, these results provide a general portrait of the users of financial statements hosted online on EDGAR.