Deciphering Linguistic Complexity during Conference Calls: Two Stories from the United States Capital Market

The first (second) topic of this thesis examines the impact of linguistic complexity, and its latent obfuscation (linguistic complexity attributable to intentional obfuscation) and information (linguistic complexity attributable to complex, technical disclosure) components, during the presentation and Q&A sessions of firms’ earnings conference calls and stock price crash risk (firms' implied cost of equity capital).