The effect of voluntary disclosure,ownership structure and proprietary cost on the return–future earnings relation

This study examines the effect of voluntary disclosure on the relation between current annual return, contemporaneous annual earnings and future earnings, and the influence of both ownership structure and proprietary cost on this relation. Regression analyses reveal that firms with higher voluntary disclosure levels contain more information about future performance in their current stock return. This positive association is weaker if (1) management holds a higher proportion of share ownership in the company, (2) proprietary cost is present and (3) government ownership exists. However, the existence of outside block ownership significantly decreases managers' ability to limit voluntary disclosure. Our findings remain significant after controlling for the usual factors (size, growth, etc.) in the return–earnings regression, and a series of sensitivity and robustness checks.     

The effect of stock price on discretionary disclosure

I examine the impact of exogenous changes in stock prices on voluntary disclosure. Specifically, I investigate whether stock price declines prompt managers to voluntarily disclose firm-value-related information (management forecasts) that was withheld prior to the decline because it was unfavorable but became favorable at a lower stock price. Consistent with my predictions, I find that managers are more likely to release good-news forecasts following larger stock price declines but that there is no association between the likelihood of releasing good-news forecasts and the magnitude of stock price increases. Additional evidence indicates that the good-news forecasts eventually conveyed by withholding firms after negative price shocks would likely have resulted in negative market reactions had they been released before the shocks. More generally, I provide evidence that managers withhold bad news and that exogenous stock price declines can induce its disclosure.     

The effect of legislation on corporate disclosure practices

This article investigates the effect of the Financial Reporting Act of 1993 (FRA) on mandatory disclosure practices of companies listed on the New Zealand Exchange Limited. The FRA gave statutory backing to financial reporting standards in New Zealand and made non-compliance illegal. Using both univariate and multivariate analyses, we examine the association between (a) the levels of compliance with mandatory disclosure by the companies in our sample, and (b) disclosure regulatory regimes that prevailed in New Zealand before and after the implementation of the FRA. We find that mean corporate disclosure compliance levels in the periods after the enactment of the FRA are significantly higher than those in the periods before the enactment of the legislation. After controlling for the effects of other mandatory disclosure-related variables documented in prior studies, we also find that the improvement in corporate disclosure compliance behaviour is the result of the implementation of the FRA. Alternative specifications of the primary regression model indicate that those findings are robust.     

The relation between segment disclosure and earnings quality

We investigate the relation between segment disclosure and earnings quality. Using a US sample for the period 2001–2006, we find a positive relation between earnings quality and the quantity of segment disclosures. We use lead-lag tests to examine the flow of causality, and our results show that current segment disclosure is positively related to prior levels of earnings quality, while current earnings quality scores are not related to prior levels of segment disclosure. Thus, the causality flows from earnings quality to segment disclosure. Our results hold for both business and geographic segment disclosure.     

The effect of disclosure committees on non-GAAP reporting quality

I examine whether company-implemented disclosure committees help to improve non-GAAP reporting quality. I find that firms with disclosure committees provide higher quality non-GAAP performance metrics and that the exclusions used to calculate their non-GAAP numbers are less persistent for future operating income and operating cash flows. Moreover, I find that firms with disclosure committees are less likely to receive SEC comment letters about non-GAAP disclosure. For firms that receive comment letters about non-GAAP reporting, disclosure committees can help to improve non-GAAP reporting quality. Comparing the influence of audit committees and disclosure committees, I find that audit committee financial experts have stronger monitoring effects than those on disclosure committees. Meanwhile, legal experts on disclosure committees provide similar monitoring compared to audit committees’ financial experts. Finally, the interaction between audit committee financial experts and disclosure committee legal experts produces the strongest effect on non-GAAP reporting quality. In sum, my analyses suggest that disclosure committees can provide important monitoring of non-GAAP reporting.     

Isolating the effect of disclosure on information risk

This study examines companies with two classes of shares that entitle their holders to identical cash flow and voting rights but that are available to mutually exclusive sets of investors: A shares to domestic investors and B shares to foreign investors. Price differences between A and B shares are higher in firms with a greater disparity in the disclosures that they make to domestic and foreign investors. This association is more pronounced when the cost (benefit) of information transfer is higher (lower). The results suggest that disclosure disparity creates meaningful differences in investors' average information precision across A and B shares and thus influences the cross-sectional variation in price differences.     

The effect of Sarbanes-Oxley on the timely disclosure of restricted stock trading

Our paper investigates the effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) on the disclosure timeliness of restricted stock trading. Insiders selling restricted stock are required to file a Form 144 because the stock is restricted and also a Form 4 because they are an insider. We confirm that mandatory filing requirements under Section 403 of SOX reduced the Form 4 disclosure delay for restricted stock transactions from 24 days in the pre-SOX period to the mandated 2 days in the post-SOX period. Although SOX did not mandate changes to Form 144 filings, we expect that disclosure timeliness of Form 144 filings is likely impacted by SOX. We find that Form 144 filings of restricted stock sales have become less timely. In the post-SOX period, Form 144, the intent to sell restricted stock, is almost always reported after the Form 4 disclosure of the executed trade. Thus, an unintended consequence of SOX is that by making the Form 4 filing more timely than the Form 144, market participants will know about a trade sooner, but have less information about the type of equity traded. An implication of this finding is that Section 403 of SOX may not have unambiguously improved investor protection as intended.     

The effect of globalization and legal environment on voluntary disclosure

We examine how interactions with foreign capital, product, and labor markets affect the disclosure practices of non-U.S. multinational firms. Drawing on literature related to multinationals, country-level legal institutions, and accounting disclosures, we expect that the relation between globalization and voluntary disclosure will be conditioned by the legal environment in a firm's home country. Specifically, while firms from countries with a strong legal environment (e.g., common-law countries) already face pressure for good disclosure, globalization can increase the benefits associated with good disclosure to firms from weak legal environments (e.g., civil-law countries). We use a self-constructed voluntary disclosure index and hand-collected disclosure and foreign activity data for 643 non-U.S. firms from 30 countries for 2003. We find a significant interaction between globalization and the legal environment. This indicates that for the same level of globalization, there is more voluntary disclosure for firms based in weak legal environments. Our results suggest that globalization is an important variable that has been overlooked in much of the previous cross-country research.     

The effect of audit committee characteristics on intellectual capital disclosure

This paper, using data from 100 UK listed firms, investigates the relationship between audit committee characteristics and intellectual capital (IC) disclosure. We find that overall IC disclosure is positively associated with audit committee characteristics such as the size and frequency of meetings, and negatively associated with audit committee directors' shareholding. We find no significant relationship between IC disclosure and audit committee independence and financial expertise. We also observe that the association between audit committee characteristics and IC disclosure varies with the IC components (i.e. human capital, structural capital and relational capital), suggesting that the underlying factors that drive various components of IC disclosure are different. These results have important implications for policy-makers in that they confirm that the effectiveness of audit committees in the corporate reporting processes is a function of certain characteristics.     

Blockholder monitoring and the efficiency of pay-performance benchmarking

In this article I examine how the performance sensitivity of CEO compensation is related to the level and turnover of outside block ownership. Separating firm performance into firm-specific (Skill) and exogenous (Luck) components, I find that pay sensitivity to Luck increases with blockholder turnover, whereas pay sensitivity to Skill increases with blockholding size. Furthermore, when blockholder turnover is higher, CEO pay increases more with positive Luck but does not decrease as much with negative Luck; also, excess CEO compensation is larger. Thus, the rent accruing to CEOs via asymmetric pay sensitivity to Luck is partly explained by short investment horizons of large shareholders.     

保险法如实告知义务的司法裁量

如实告知义务制度是保险法的基本制度之一。虽然修改后的《保险法》对如实告知义务进行了完善,但仍无法详尽,如实告知义务实践和理论中的许多争议都必须依靠法院的自由裁量来解决。在投保人告知事项范围、告知义务主体、违反如实告知义务的法律后果等争议比较集中的典型问题上,应将理论与保险商事实践相结合,进行科学的司法裁量,构建和谐的保险秩序。     

The effect of trade secrets protection on disclosure of forward-looking financial information

Using the recognition of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) by US state courts as an exogenous shock to the risk of losing trade secrets, this study examines the effects of trade secrets on disclosure of forward-looking financial information. We find that management earnings forecast frequency and forecast horizon increases after the US state where a firm is headquartered starts to recognize IDD. We also find that the effect of IDD recognition on management forecasts is more pronounced for firms that have larger market shares, higher product market competition, more intensive R&D, shorter distance to their industry rivals, and more employees who possess knowledge of the firms’ trade secrets.     

Testing the effect of portfolio holdings disclosure in an environment absent of mandatory disclosure

This study examines a number of portfolio disclosure regimes with respect to accuracy and susceptibility to copycat behaviour in an environment absent of mandatory disclosure. We find that periodic portfolio disclosure tends to underestimate true excess performance as well as idiosyncratic risk in top‐quartile fund managers, with longer inter‐reporting intervals tending to result in greater differences. ‘Copycat funds’ following the disclosed holdings of top‐tier managers significantly underperform the underlying fund, while copycats following bottom‐tier managers significantly outperform the underlying fund. Our findings suggest that periodic reporting at monthly intervals or longer would not affect fund alpha generation.     

The relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: a research note

Previous studies of the relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure have consistently documented a lack of significance. This study examines the relation between 1990 annual report environmental disclosures for a sample of 131 US companies and their environmental performance as based on toxics release data from 1988 (made available in 1990). In contrast to the previous examinations, results indicate that, controlling for firm size and industry classification (two factors previously shown to be related to the extent of environmental disclosure), there is a significant negative relation between performance and disclosure for the sample firms. However, the disclosure level of firms from non-environmentally sensitive industries is more affected by toxic release levels than is the disclosure of firms from environmentally sensitive industries.     

Say-on-pay judgements: the two-strikes rule and the pay-performance link

We undertake an experiment to explore shareholder voting behaviour when the pay-performance link is weak or strong; and when there has (has not) been a first strike in the preceding year. We find shareholders are more supportive of a remuneration package evidencing a strong pay-performance link than a weak link. Further, shareholders are less supportive of a remuneration package when there has been a first strike in the preceding year than when there has not been a first strike. Importantly, we find that a first strike reduces the effect of the pay-performance link on voting intentions.     

The substitutive relation between voluntary disclosure and corporate governance in their effects on firm performance

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - Prior literature shows that financial disclosures and corporate governance both impact firm performance. This paper documents an important topic that...     

The effect of increased disclosure on cost of capital: Evidence from China

This study examined the relationship between disclosure and the cost of capital. Prior studies empirically testing this relationship provided mixed findings, and also raised several concerns, such as the endogeneity of disclosure, the information disclosure environment, and the sample size. This study investigated this relationship based on data from the Chinese capital market where a unique institutional arrangement makes the disclosure exogenous. This unique characteristic, in conjunction with a less stringent information environment and a big sample size, helped address these concerns. Our findings confirmed the negative relationship between disclosure and cost of capital.     

The effect of fair disclosure regulation on timeliness and informativeness of earnings announcements

This paper examines the effect of Korea’s fair disclosure regulation on the timeliness and informativeness of earnings announcements. The present regulation for Korean listed firms requires that if a company’s sales revenue, operating income (or loss) and net income (or loss) have changed by over 30% compared to the prior year, the firm must disclose this information through a preliminary financial report (PFR) even before the company is audited by external auditors. To analyze the effects of this policy, we first investigate the timeliness of preliminary financial report disclosures. We examine the extent to which Korean listed companies actually comply with the requirement for prompt notification of information concerning material changes in financial performance. Second, we investigate the informativeness of preliminary financial reports by analyzing differential stock market reactions to different timings of preliminary financial report disclosures. Our empirical results reveal that more than half of our sample firms release their preliminary financial reports after external audits are completed, thereby potentially invalidating the effectiveness of the regulation. In addition, we find that preliminary financial reports have information value only if they are disclosed prior to annual audit report dates. This finding supports the notion that timeliness increases the informativeness of preliminary financial report disclosure by curbing insiders’ ability to potentially profit from their information advantage.