Abstract

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) has been touted as a new technology that may someday replace HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) as the standard method of statutory filings. This study offers some initial empirical evidence suggesting that retail investors do not use XBRL structured data as much as expected by the SEC (the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission). The result shows that the main reports in HTML format of 10-K filings are used much more frequently than the structured data in raw XBRL and the Microsoft Excel format. In addition, textual reports derived from XBRL data are also used more frequently than the two structured data formats. Taken together, the results suggest that the XBRL mandate pushed by the SEC may need a second look.

摘要

XBRL（可扩展业务报告语言）被吹捧为一种新技术，有朝一日可能取代 HTML（超文本标记语言）成为法定归档的标准方法。本研究提供了一些初步经验证据，表明散户投资者使用 XBRL 结构化数据的次数不如 SEC（美国证券交易委员会）预期的那样多。结果表明，与原始 XBRL 和 Microsoft Excel 格式的结构化数据相比，10-K 文件的主要 HTML 格式报告的使用频率更高。此外，源自 XBRL 数据的文本报告也比两种结构化数据格式更常用。综上所述，结果表明 SEC 推动的 XBRL 授权可能需要重新审视。