Disclosure and the cost of capital: A discussion

In this discussion I comment on the contribution of two papers toward our understanding of how disclosure affects the cost of capital. Specifically, in the context of these papers, I comment on whether disclosure ameliorates or exacerbates the cost of capital that arises from the existence of information asymmetries in capital markets. This is a notion that should be of fundamental interest in that it provides an economic basis for evaluating the costs and benefits of accounting information.     

Measuring Accounting Disclosure in a Period of Complex Changes: The Case of Egypt

Significant changes in accounting disclosure are observed in periods of economic change such as those relating to emerging capital markets and programs of privatization. Measurement of the level of accounting disclosure should ideally be designed to capture the complexity of change in order to give insight and explanation to match the causes and consequences of change. This paper shows the added interpretive value in subdividing the disclosure checklist to reflect the requirements of national accounting regulations, the location of disclosure items in the annual report, and limitations on the availability of regulations in official translation to the local language. Defining targeted disclosure categories leads to significance testing of specific aspects of changes in accounting disclosure in the Egyptian capital market in the 1990s. Strong correlation of disclosure with the presence of majority government ownership of the company and the relative activity of share trading supports the applicability of political costs and capital need theories, respectively. The relation between International Accounting Standards (IASs) disclosure and the type of audit firm points to additional theoretical explanations, including relative familiarity with the legislation and compliance features identifiable with the emerging capital market. The approach described in this paper has the potential for enhancing understanding of the complexity of accounting change in other emerging capital markets and developing economies.     

Securities Laws, Disclosure, and National Capital Markets in the Age of Financial Globalization

As barriers to international investment fall and technology improves, the cost advantages for a firm's securities to trade publicly in the country in which that firm is located and for that country to have a market for publicly traded securities distinct from the capital markets of other countries will progressively disappear. Securities laws remain an important determinant of whether and where securities are issued, how they are valued, who owns them, and where they trade. I show that there is a demand from entrepreneurs for mechanisms that allow them to commit to credible disclosure because disclosure helps reduce agency costs. Under some circumstances, mandatory disclosure through securities laws can help satisfy that demand, but only provided investors or the state can act on the information disclosed and the laws cannot be weakened ex post too much through lobbying by corporate insiders. With financial globalization, national disclosure laws can have wide-ranging effects on a country's welfare, on firms and on investor portfolios, including the extent to which share holdings reveal a home bias. In equilibrium, if firms can choose the securities laws they are subject to when they go public, some firms will choose stronger securities laws than those of the country in which they are located and some firms will do the opposite.     

Political/Policy Uncertainty,Corporate Disclosure,and Information Asymmetry*

Political/policy uncertainty causes significant disruption to capital markets around the world. This review synthesizes recent studies on this topic and provides suggestions for future research in this fast-growing area. Specifically, this review focuses on three areas of research: (i) the measurement of political/policy uncertainty, (ii) the impact of political/policy uncertainty on financial analysts' forecasts, and (iii) the impact of political/policy uncertainty on corporate disclosure. We find that political/policy uncertainty affects both corporate disclosures and financial analysts' forecasts and that these effects interact with information asymmetry in capital markets. Furthermore, we find that companies strategically change their disclosure practices during periods of heightened political/policy uncertainty.     

Bank Capital and Risk: Is Voluntary Disclosure Enough?

This paper considers whether banks have an incentive to disclose accurate information concerning their risk and capital adequacy. State-of-the-art capital regulation relies on quantitative capital requirements, bank supervision, and public disclosure of information to the markets. Is voluntary regulatory disclosure of risk information sufficient to achieve policy objectives? The game-theoretic model of this paper suggests that voluntary disclosure can be usefully supplemented with other regulatory tools, in particular with direct supervision and financial market discipline.     

Corporate Disclosure as a Tacit Coordination Mechanism: Evidence from Cartel Enforcement Regulations

We empirically study how collusion in product markets affects firms' financial disclosure strategies. We find that after a rise in cartel enforcement, U.S. firms start sharing more detailed information in their financial disclosure about their customers, contracts, and products. This new information potentially benefits peers by helping to tacitly coordinate actions in product markets. Indeed, changes in disclosure are associated with higher future profitability. Our results highlight the potential conflict between securities and antitrust regulations.     

Web‐Based Disclosure About Value Creation Processes: A Monitoring Perspective

Adopting a monitoring perspective, this study aims to explain how and why firms provide web‐based disclosure about their value creation and its underlying processes. We rely on the balanced scoreboard approach to measure disclosure. Our results suggest that costs incurred by capital markets' participants as well as monitoring by the board and the media drive disclosure. Moreover, we argue and document that a firm's disclosure is actually a part of its governance configuration and influences some board processes.     

Environmental,Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure: A literature review

Voluntary nonfinancial Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure is a rapidly growing and increasingly important topic that has attracted great attention from both academic researchers and capital market participants in recent years. The objective of this survey study is to provide a comprehensive review of the ESG disclosure literature in accounting research with suggestions for the future. Specifically, we organize the literature into four categories: motivations for and consequences associated with ESG information, in addition to disclosure- and user-level characteristics with the potential to affect the observed outcome of information disclosure. We also discuss the key role of nonfinancial rating agencies as a new type of ESG information intermediary in capital markets and suggest opportunities for future research.     

Disclosure of outsourcing in the annual report: Causes and market returns effects

Firms increasingly are utilizing outsourcing to enhance or maintain their competitiveness. Prior research shows that capital markets value a firm's decision to outsource. This study uses a sample of firms announcing outsourcing arrangements in a press release to examine which factors are associated with the subsequent decision to voluntarily provide or withhold information about outsourcing in their annual report. The paper also examines whether annual report disclosure is a reliable signal of future market performance. We find that underperforming firms, larger firms, and firms experiencing negative outsourcing announcement market returns and negative long-term market returns are more likely to disclose outsourcing in their annual reports. There is also evidence that firms' disclosure of outsourcing in the annual report signals an improvement in market performance that is credible to the capital markets. We contend that the disclosure and subsequent firm performance issues we investigate apply to any type of outsourcing arrangement, and therefore our results are relevant to future information systems research on this subject. Our findings also suggest that regulatory standards could reduce private information search costs for investors by providing a common disclosure methodology for outsourcing activities.     

Earnings Performance and Discretionary Disclosure

While the influence of earnings performance on disclosure is a fundamental issue in the disclosure literature, our understanding of this influence is limited. In this paper, I examine a comprehensive set of disclosures from a sample of firms experiencing an extended period of seasonally adjusted earnings increases. I study how these firms adjust disclosure in response to earnings increases, how disclosure changes as the period of strong earnings performance nears an end and how firms disclose during a subsequent period of earnings decline. I find an increase in disclosure during the period of increased earnings. This increase is pervasive across all types of disclosure and tends to be bundled with earnings announcements. The market responds positively to this disclosure. Firms continue to disclose at a high level as they approach earnings declines. However, they shift to disclosures that focus on the positive short-term results and do not discuss the impending decreases. While this behavior is systematic, the market does not appear to anticipate the subsequent earnings declines. Once the firms announce earnings declines, the magnitude of disclosure returns to the level provided prior to the increased earnings.     

资本市场开放能否提高企业信息披露质量？——基于“沪港通”和年报文本挖掘的分析

提高信息披露质量对于改善上市公司治理结构和保护股东权益具有重要意义。本文利用2014年开通的“沪港通”机制这一准自然实验,研究资本市场开放是否提高了企业的信息披露质量。从2010-2019年A股上市公司年报文本中提炼可读性指标衡量信息披露质量,使用匹配和双重差分方法进行实证研究,发现“沪港通”机制实施以后,标的公司(纳入“沪港通”的A股上市公司)的信息披露质量显著提高。这一结论对不同的估计方法、样本区间及控制变量组均保持稳健。异质性分析表明,对于盈余操纵水平较高、股价信息含量较低的企业,资本市场开放能够更好地改善其信息披露质量。本文丰富了资本市场开放对企业行为和绩效影响的实证研究,为继续推进资本市场开放政策提供了理论依据。     

The role of the media in disseminating insider-trading news

We use the process through which insider trading (SEC Form 4) filings are made public to investigate whether media coverage affects the way securities markets assimilate news. To do this, we use recent changes in disclosure rules governing insider trades as well as the initiation of coverage by Dow Jones to cleanly identify media effects. Using high-resolution intraday data, we find clear effects of media dissemination on the way prices and volume respond to insider trading news in the minutes after its release. These results help to resolve open questions regarding the role of the media in capital markets, including why apparently second hand news affects securities prices.     

Going-Public and the Influence of Disclosure Environments

This paper analyzes how differences in disclosure environments affect the firms choice between private and public capital. Disclosure requirements prescribe to what extent the firm has to release private information that may lead to the firm incurring proprietary costs. We examine which firm types go public in equilibrium, and how the equilibrium outcomes change with changes in the disclosure environments. Our findings show that in a partial financing equilibrium, should such an equilibrium exist, good firms finance privately. This result is robust to changes in the disclosure environment.JEL Classification: G32, M49     

Information asymmetry,corporate disclosure,and the capital markets: A review of the empirical disclosure literature

Financial reporting and disclosure are potentially important means for management to communicate firm performance and governance to outside investors. We provide a framework for analyzing managers’ reporting and disclosure decisions in a capital markets setting, and identify key research questions. We then review current empirical research on disclosure regulation, information intermediaries, and the determinants and economic consequences of corporate disclosure. Our survey concludes that current research has generated a number of useful insights. We identify many fundamental questions that remain unanswered, and changes in the economic environment that raise new questions for research.     

社交媒体上“用嘴投票”对管理层自愿性业绩预告的影响

本文研究了投资者 “股吧”讨论这种“用嘴投票”机制能否发挥治理作用进而促进管理层进行自愿性业绩预告。用上市公司股吧中的发帖量、阅读量和评论量来衡量投资者“用嘴投票”的参与程度,研究发现投资者“用嘴投票”参与度越高,管理层进行盈余预测自愿性披露的概率越大,且更愿意及时披露业绩下滑等坏消息。进一步研究发现,投资者“用嘴投票”是通过对股价产生影响、引发监管层关注和招致媒体报道这三个渠道对管理层产生预警进而发挥治理作用。且这一治理机制在管理层受到互联网信息影响可能性越大、公司中小股东户数越多以及论坛的讨论内容越负面时更为显著。     

资本市场会计信息披露暨治理问题研究--基于上市公司会计信息披露不对称的视角

上市公司会计信息生产和披露质量直接影响了资本市场的稳定健康发展。资本市场会计信息生产和披露存在着一定的供求机理,直接影响了会计信息生产和披露的质量。由于管理主体上的虚化、内控弱化和治理结构上的偏差、会计信息系统的集成和共享性弱以及从业人员素质上的差异,使得上市公司会计信息披露存在着不充分性、非主动性、虚假性和滞后性问题,由此增加了资本市场信息不对称和风险发生的可能。因此,严厉打击资本市场会计信息造假,规范资本市场会计信息披露,需要进一步完善资本市场会计信息披露制度,创新和完善新技术背景下会计准则和会计制度,加强对现有上市公司会计信息生产和会计信息披露标准的制定和使用,提升上市公司会计信息生产和会计信息披露独立审计监督的标准化和规范化水平,加强上市公司会计信息生产和披露监督标准化体系建设。     

Time‐Varying Capital Requirements and Disclosure Rules: Effects on Capitalization and Lending Decisions

We investigate how banks’ capital and lending decisions respond to changes in bank‐specific capital and disclosure requirements. We find that an increase in the bank‐specific regulatory capital requirement results in a higher bank capital ratio, brought about via less asset risk. A decrease in the requirement implies more lending to firms but also less Tier 1 capital and higher bank leverage. We do not observe differences between confidential and public disclosure of capital requirements. Our results empirically illustrate a tradeoff between bank resilience and a fostering of the economy through more bank lending using banks’ capital requirement as policy instrument.     

Voluntary Disclosure, Earnings Quality, and Cost of Capital

We investigate the relations among voluntary disclosure, earnings quality, and cost of capital. We find that firms with good earnings quality have more expansive voluntary disclosures (as proxied by a self‐constructed index of coded items found in 677 firms' annual reports and 10‐K filings in fiscal 2001) than firms with poor earnings quality. In unconditional tests, we find that more voluntary disclosure is associated with a lower cost of capital. However, consistent with the complementary association between disclosure and earnings quality, we find that the disclosure effect on cost of capital is substantially reduced or disappears completely (depending on the cost of capital proxy) once we condition on earnings quality. Extensions probing alternative proxies show that our findings are robust to measures of earnings quality and cost of capital, but not to other measures of voluntary disclosure. In particular, we find opposite relations for voluntary disclosure measures based on management forecasts and conference calls, and we find no relations for a press release based measure.     

Does Consumer Protection Enhance Disclosure Credibility in Reward Crowdfunding?

We study how the interplay of disclosure and regulation shapes capital allocation in reward crowdfunding. Using data from Kickstarter, the largest online reward crowdfunding platform, we show that, even in the absence of clear regulation and enforcement mechanisms, disclosure helps entrepreneurs access capital for their projects and bolsters engagement with potential project backers, consistent with the notion that disclosure mitigates moral hazard. We further document that, subsequent to a change in Kickstarter's terms of use that increases the threat of consumer litigation, the association between project funding and disclosure becomes stronger. This evidence suggests that consumer protection regulation enhances the perceived credibility of disclosure. We find the effect of the change in terms of use to be more pronounced in states with stricter consumer protection regulations. Taken together, our findings yield important insights on the role of disclosure, as well as on the potential effects of increased regulation on crowdfunding platforms.     

The Relationship between Voluntary Disclosure,External Financing and Financial Status

Using unique Swedish disclosure data from 2007 to 2012, this paper reports three important sets of findings with regard to the relationship between firms’ voluntary disclosure, external financing and financial status. First, financially strong firms disclose more than weaker ones. Second, firms that obtain new financing (equity or debt) disclose more than firms that do not. Third, the association between voluntary disclosure and financing events is stronger in financially weak firms. This last finding is new in the literature. Perhaps financially weak firms that obtain external funding have higher disclosure to counteract contracting and valuation problems in the financial markets.