【报告主题】Discrepancies Between Company-Reported and Compustat-Assigned SIC Codes
【主讲嘉宾】Guang Ma，Rutgers University
【报告时间】2026年6月2日 14:00
【报告地点】会计学院108室
【内容提要】
The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code that a firm uses in its SEC EDGAR filings often differs from the code assigned by Compustat. Using 96,240 firm-year observations of U.S. public firms from 1996 through 2024, we find that the two sources disagree for 34.3% of firm-years, with disagreement increasing at every level of the SIC hierarchy since 1996. We observe that disagreement is concentrated among firms operating across multiple segments, undergoing mergers or restructuring, or relying heavily on (acquired) intangible assets. When the two sources place a firm in different sectors, stock returns comove more strongly with Compustat peers, consistent with Compustat's revenue-based classification capturing the firm's sector-wide exposures. When the two sources agree on the broad sector but disagree on narrow industries, returns comove more strongly with EDGAR peers, consistent with managers having private information about the firm's closest competitors. Our findings suggest that disagreement on the SIC code between EDGAR and Compustat is a valuable economic signal.