We study how the social transmission of public news influences investors' beliefs and securities markets. Using an extensive dataset to measure investor social networks, we find that earnings announcements from firms in higher-centrality locations generate stronger immediate price and trading...

Financial reports present assets, liabilities, and earnings on a nominal basis (unadjusted for inflation). Using a novel dataset of nearly a century of financial reports, this paper examines whether and how inflation affects the relation between accounting earnings and stock market value, i.e.,...

We examine the real effects of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) on electric power plants in the United States. Starting in 2010, the GHGRP requires both the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions by facilities emitting more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year to the...

Investing according to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria is gaining momentum. Most environmental performance indices focus only on the tonnage of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. This paper proposes an index covering eight pollutants expressed in monetary damage. Inclusion of...

Disclosure--the practice of providing information to support decision making--has been widely mandated in public policy but is routinely ignored by consumers and subject to obfuscation by firms. Yet most evidence on the effectiveness of consumer financial disclosure stems from lab experiments...

A concern central to the economics of privacy is that firms may use consumer data to price discriminate. A common response is that consumers should have control over their data and the ability to choose how firms access it. Since firms draw inferences based on both the data seen as well as the...

In many industries firms can learn about new technologies from other adopters; mandatory disclosure regulations represent an understudied channel for this type of social learning. We study an environmentally-focused law in the shale gas industry to examine firms' claims that disclosure...

This paper analyzes how corporate disclosure has been reshaped by machine processors, employed by algorithmic traders, robot investment advisors, and quantitative analysts. Our findings indicate that increasing machine and AI readership, proxied by machine downloads, motivates firms to prepare...

This paper develops and tests a model in which 1) purpose-driven firms emerge as an optimal organizational form even for profit-maximizing entrepreneurs; and 2) CSR arises endogenously as a response to imperfect regulatory oversight. Purpose-driven organizations allow entrepreneurs to create...