The authors suggests that banks that are more forthcoming on basic balance-sheet items exhibit lower stock price volatility. About 600 banks in thirty-one countries over the 1993-2000 period are covered. The authors find that higher values of their disclosure index are associated with...

Over the past years, a number of initiatives have sought toincrease the transparency of financial institutions.Among those initiatives, a push toward more disclosure ofinformation in published accounts has been prominent. Inparticular, policy proposals such as the New Basel Accord(Pillar 3) have...