Bad Earnings Make Good Comedy

Financial markets are mechanisms for aggregating the behaviors and preferences of lots of human beings, which means that financial economics is essentially the study of human behavior. Mostly the behavior that gets studied is, you know, buying and selling stocks, stuff like that. Sometimes, though, it’s jokes:

That is from “Analysts’ and Managers’ Use of Humor on Public Earnings Conference Calls,” by Andrew Call, Rachel Flam, Joshua Lee and Nathan Sharp, and it is part of that lovely genre of financial papers that confirm what you would have guessed if you’ve ever met a human. One day in the not too distant future equity research analysts will be replaced by robots, and then sometime after that corporate managers will also be replaced by robots, and then earnings calls will be brief and joyless. But for now these are all human beings who have to work with each other, and who try to make their work days pleasant, and who reward each other for making their days pleasant. Here you all are on a boring conference call, why not lighten it up with a joke? Here you are asking a negative question, why not soften the blow with a joke? Here you are having a nice chat with managers who make you laugh, why not recommend that your customers buy their stock? It’s all pretty straightforward.