A growing literature documents that complex financial statements negatively affect the information environment. In this paper, we examine whether managers use voluntary disclosure to mitigate these negative effects. Employing cross-sectional and within-firm designs, we find a robust positive...

This paper examines how the ex ante level of public scrutiny influences a manager's subsequent decision to misreport. The conventional wisdom is that high levels of public scrutiny facilitate monitoring, suggesting a negative relation between scrutiny and misreporting. However, public scrutiny...

Several recent empirical papers assert that the decision to disclose an earnings forecast shortly before the actual earnings announcement reveals only short-term information and is therefore unlikely to entail proprietary costs. Using a simple dynamic model of voluntary disclosure, we show that...

This paper examines how credit rating levels affect municipal debt issuers' disclosure decisions. Using exogenous upgrades in credit rating levels caused by the recalibration of Moody's municipal ratings scale in 2010, we find that upgraded municipalities significantly reduce their disclosure of...

We examine how open procurement data affect the award procedures and execution of government contracts. The European Union recently made its historical procurement notices available for bulk download in a cohesive and user-friendly database. Comparing government contracts above and below EU...

We examine how amnesty-based regulatory initiatives affect compliance in the context of the SEC’s 2014 Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative (MCDC). In an effort to increase transparency in the municipal debt market, the MCDC granted favorable settlement terms to...

Capital budgeting frequently involves multiple stages at which firms can continue or abandon ongoing projects. In this paper, we study a project requiring two stages of investment. Failure to fund Stage 1 of the investment precludes investment in Stage 2, whereas failure to fund Stage 2 results...

In this paper we examine a setting where agents can form lobbying coalitions to influence a policy-maker. Policy uniformity causes agents to free ride on each other's lobbying and gives them an incentive to form lobbying coalitions. We investigate when coalitions are formed by similar or...