Disclosure Costs of Relative Performance Evaluation

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Martin, Melissa; Timmermans, Oscar
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Chicago; University of Illinois Chicago Hospital; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2024.06200
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Information disclosure; capital markets; relative performance evaluation; PROPRIETARY COSTS

摘要

Relative performance evaluation has become an increasingly common component of executive compensation contracts. We study how these incentive plans relate to corporate disclosure and predict that they introduce an incremental disclosure cost. This cost arises because disclosures can help competitors make better investment decisions, enhancing their performance and thereby reducing managers' expected compensation. Consistent with this prediction, we find a negative association between relative performance plans and voluntary value-relevant management forecasts, alongside a positive association with redactions in mandatory filings. This pattern is specific to plans with accounting-based metrics and absent for plans with price-based metrics. The results for price-based metrics are consistent with the idea that the incentive to reduce information asymmetry with market participants outweighs disclosure costs in these plans. The results for accounting-based metrics are more pronounced for managers whose plans provide stronger incentives and for those whose forecasts provide meaningful information spillovers to peers. Overall, this paper contributes the idea that relative performance plans can impose disclosure costs, thereby shedding light on contracting mechanisms that discourage disclosure-a less well-understood aspect of disclosure research.