We examine the effect of firms’ information environment on asymmetric cost behavior (cost stickiness). Using plausibly exogenous variation in firms’ information environment stemming from brokerage closures, we find that the stickiness of selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs...

This study examines whether the mandatory adoption of Integrated Reporting (IR) in South Africa improves the ease of reading of annual reports for investors. Using the coherence of text as a measure of readability of the text, I demonstrate that adoption of IR leads to an increase in the...

We study changes in firms' dividend policies in response to an exogenous improvement in the information environment, enabled by IFRS adoption, between investors and firms. We document that the relationship between information asymmetry reduction and dividend payout policy is not monotonic but in...