SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 74 (SAB 74, U.S. SEC 1987) requires registrants to provide information about the predicted financial statement effect of an enacted but not yet adopted accounting standard. The objectives of SAB 74 disclosures are to inform users the registrant will be required...

We examine a new government-sponsored investment vehicle available only to individual investors, 529 college savings plans, to analyze consumers' investment behavior after a significant change in disclosures of historical investment returns and tax benefits. We find evidence that disclosures...