Multidimensional Competition and Corporate Disclosure

In this paper, we argue that the influence product market competition exerts on disclosure is defined by the combined effect of the incentives and disincentives to disclose raised by the multiple competition dimensions. We distinguish between firm and industry level competition measures, and we hypothesize that the former raises agency and proprietary costs, whereas the latter creates incentives to disclose either to fulfill the owners' need of information to monitor managers or to deter the entrance of new competitors in the industry. Our research design allows for non-monotonic relationships between competition and disclosure as well as for interactions between competition dimensions. Using a sample of U.S. manufacturing companies, we gather evidence that is consistent with our hypotheses. First, we find an inverted U-shape relationship between corporate disclosure and a firm's abnormal profitability, which is suggestive of firms being reluctant to disclose when they are underperforming (outperforming) their rivals because of the fear of unveiling agency conflicts (raising proprietary costs). Second, we observe a U-shape relationship between corporate disclosure and industry profitability, although this U design evolves to approximate a rising function as the protection provided by entry barriers increases