Observational learning theories often assume that people's actions can be observed. However, in many naturally-occurring environments, individuals can choose whether to disclose their behavior to others. We provide theoretical analysis of observational learning under optional disclosure...

We track the employment histories of over 3,000 chief executive officers (CEOs) and study how their past litigation experiences affect corporate disclosure decisions. We define litigation experience to be any securities class action experienced during a CEO’s early career in other firms and in...

This paper examines whether investor learning about profitability (i.e., the mean of earnings distribution) leads to persistence in disclosure decisions. A repeated single-period model shows that persistent investor beliefs about profitability lead to persistent disclosure decisions. Using...

Insiders of Canadian reporting issuers are required to file public reports when they acquire, buy, or sell securities of that reporting issuer. These public reports must be filed using a prescribed form and must be filed within a specific time frame. Failure to file these public reports or...

This paper studies the role of observational learning in search markets where buyers do not take the list price as a take-it-or-leave-it offer. Using a unique data from the Beijing housing market, we estimate a structural model in which buyers infer a seller’s reservation value from the...

I study voluntary disclosure of oligopoly firms when they learn information from asset prices. By disclosing information, a firm incurs a cost of losing competitive advantage to its rivals but benefits from learning from a more informative asset market. Adding a financial market helps the...

Financial restatements are costly, but frequent, events and many firms restate several times. This paper asks why rational managers engage in misreporting, in spite of the costly consequences. We present a simple extension to the Fischer and Verrecchia (2000) model, which provides testable...

We consider a dynamic model featuring two firms that test a regulator’s enforcement propensity through their misconduct and a regulator that disciplines them to build a reputation for strict enforcement. We show that when the regulator has full discretion over the enforcement criterion, peer...

Observational learning theories often assume that people’s actions can be observed. Nevertheless, in many naturally occurring environments, individuals can choose whether to disclose their behavior to others. We theoretically analyze various disclosure rules and show that learning can be more...