We investigate economic consequences of the deregulation of quarterly reporting in member states of the European Union, as stipulated by the amended Transparency Directive in 2013. We observe that subsequent to this deregulation, only relatively few firms reduced reporting frequency by switching...

This Article responds to recent proposals calling for the SEC to adopt a mandatory ESG-disclosure framework. It illustrates how the breadth and vagueness of these proposals obscures the important—and controversial—policy questions that would need to be addressed before the SEC could move...

The Securities and Exchange Commission is at the center of one of the fiercest debates in climate policy and corporate governance: What should U.S. public companies disclose about their climate change risks and other ESG issues? The debate has been intractable for fifty years. Activists and...

As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission considers appropriate “ESG” disclosure mandates, the Financial Economist’s Roundtable contributes to the debate with a statement summarizing its policy discussion. The FER believes financial regulators should limit mandates to matters that...

Corporate governance has been the subject of dozens, if not hundreds, of books and articles in legal, accounting, finance, and economic literature since at least 1932. Disclosure has also been the subject of dozens, if not hundreds, of books and articles in legal, accounting, finance, and...

In this paper, I estimate the effect of mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions disclosure on corporate value. Using the introduction of mandatory GHG emissions reporting for firms listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange as a source of exogenous variation, I find that firms most...

Restoring the credibility of the auditor's report by disclosing an audit partner's signature has been the subject of recent auditing standard setting. This study presents an experimental examination of the effect of voluntary audit partner signature disclosure on nonprofessional investor...

I study how the observability of market prices and trading (hereafter, “market transparency”) affects firms' disclosure incentives. I exploit the staggered introduction of TRACE, which made bond prices and transactions publicly observable, and show that firms provide more guidance when their...

We apply modern machine learning techniques to characterize disclosure misclassification by public companies. We find that 12-26% of disclosures are misclassified; those concerning material definitive agreements, executive or director turnover, and delistings are most commonly misclassified. Using...

We examine whether a disclosure mandate for greenhouse gas emissions creates stakeholder pressure for firms to subsequently reduce their emissions. For UK-incorporated listed firms such a mandate was adopted in 2013. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that firms affected by the...