Institutional site visits enable investors to obtain incremental information beyond routine public disclosures and engage directly with corporate managers. This study posits that site visits may facilitate the early transmission of event-related information to the market, thereby contributing to price reactions before major corporate announcements. Using mandatory disclosures of site visits in China, this study finds that firms receiving site visits experience higher cumulative abnormal returns before profit distribution announcements, consistent with the view that site visits transmit information to the market before formal disclosure. The incremental pricing effect of site visits, however, weakens when event signals become stronger. Investor attention further facilitates the pricing of site-visit-related information, whereas different sources of information complexity either strengthen this pricing role in high-signal payout events or weaken the general transmission of site-visit information. Further trading evidence shows that major shareholders and executives are more likely to reduce their holdings when their trading operations are preceded by high-signal payout events with prior site visits, and that mutual funds affiliated with the corresponding site-visit institutions exhibit staged holding adjustments around these events. Overall, the evidence suggests that site visits provide an observable channel through which incremental information enters prices before formal disclosure, although this pricing role varies with event signal strength and information-processing conditions.

Digital empowerment has become deeply embedded in global production networks, yet its implications for sectoral energy systems remain insufficiently understood. This study investigates whether digital empowerment is associated with sectoral energy-structure transition and through which channels. Using matched World Input–Output Database accounts for 2000–2014 and applying the Hypothetical Extraction Method (HEM), we measure digital empowerment at the country–sector level and examine its association with sectoral energy-use outcomes. The estimates indicate that digital empowerment is associated with a lower fossil-fuel share and lower total sectoral energy consumption in the full sample, although the associations differ across non-fossil energy categories, sectors, and development stages. Additional channel-based tests show that digital empowerment is associated with lower energy intensity, improved global value-chain positioning, and higher export technological sophistication. Both domestic and foreign digital inputs contribute to this relationship, and manufacturing sectors show a clearer association with lower total energy consumption than service sectors. Developing economies exhibit weaker compositional adjustment than developed economies. These findings provide empirical evidence for integrating digitalization into energy transition strategies and offer practical pathways for aligning digital economic development with sustainable energy objectives.