We examine the impact of short sellers on insider trading profitability using a natural experiment of a pilot program which relaxed short-selling constraints for randomly selected pilot stocks. We find that pilot firms experienced a significant decrease in insider trading profitability during the pilot program. The results are more pronounced for the pilot firms with poor information quality, and for the pilot firms without corporate restrictions on insider trading. Our evidence suggests that short sellers serve an important market disciplinary role by reducing insider trading profitability.

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卖空者和内幕交易盈利能力：自然实验

我们通过一个试点项目的自然实验来检验卖空者对内幕交易盈利能力的影响，该试点项目放宽了对随机选择的试点股票的卖空限制。我们发现，试点公司在试点期间经历了内幕交易盈利能力的显着下降。对于信息质量较差的试点企业和未对内幕交易进行公司限制的试点企业，结果更为明显。我们的证据表明，卖空者通过降低内幕交易的盈利能力来发挥重要的市场纪律作用。