Although mandatory disclosure programs have been studied extensively, strategic voluntary environmental disclosures by firms are not well understood. We study the motivations for and impacts of firms’ strategic disclosure of greenhouse gas reductions to theUS government.Wefirstmodel firms’ joint abatement and disclosure decisions, incorporating both economic and political incentives. We then us...

This paper examines factors influencing voluntary forecast disclosure by target companies, whether good/bad news forecasts are disclosed and the influence of forecasts on the outcome of hostile bids. Disclosure was significantly more likely during contested bids. In agreed bids, probability of forecast disclosure was greater the shorter the bid horizon. In contested bids, forecasts were more li...

This study examines how firms’ voluntary disclosure decisions are influenced by the product market competition. Using separate measures to capture different dimensions of competition, I show that competition from potential entrants increases disclosure quantity while competition from existing rivals decreases disclosure quantity. I also find that competition enhances disclosure quality mainly t...

The sharp distinction drawn between firms rated narrowly above (BBB–) and below (BB+) the investment-grade cutoff provides variation in debt financing availability unrelated to firm fundamentals. We exploit this market segmentation to identify an asymmetric effect of debt capital supply on voluntary disclosure: BB+ firms step up disclosure in response to high-yield bond mutual fund outflows. Th...

The objectives of this study are to measure the level of voluntary disclosure provided in the annual reports of Jordanian companies and to examine the impact of disclosure level on the stock market liquidity using Jordanian data. To achieve the first objective, a self-constructed disclosure index consisting of 62 items was applied to the annual reports of 60 Jordanian non-financial companies li...

We examine the introduction of the voluntary filing program (VFP) by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the introduction of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), or Interactive Data as called in the US. XBRL is a machine-readable standardized format for financial reports. The VFP allowed firms to file annual and quarterly reports using XBRL. This program represents a quas...

We examine stock price reaction to voluntary disclosure of innovation strategy by high-tech firms and its relation with insider stock transactions before the disclosure. We find that, despite the qualitative and subjective nature of strategy-related disclosure, there is positive stock price reaction to the disclosure. The evidence suggests that investors view the disclosure as credible good new...

Earnings non-synchronicity captures the extent to which firm-specific factors determine a firm’s earnings, and has important implications to a firm’s information environment. Prior research shows that high earnings non-synchronicity impedes corporate outsiders’ information processing. Given managers generally possess superior information about their firms’ unique operating and reporting strateg...

M disclose quality information directly to potential consumers using a variety of communication channels. This study investigates how competition may influence duopoly firms’ incentive to voluntarily reveal quality information. We show that firms in competitive markets reveal less information than a monopoly firm. In addition, sequential disclosure leads to asymmetric equilibrium disclosure beh...

We study the choice of disclosure and share repurchase strategies of informed managers. Using a model that captures how direct disclosures and share repurchases differentially impact short and long-term stock value, we ask when will they choose disclosure, or repurchases, or both. We find that both direct disclosure and share repurchase policies emerge in equilibrium in different regions of fir...