Reporting regulation and corporate innovation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Breuer, Matthias; Leuz, Christian; Vanhaverbeke, Steven
• 署名单位: Columbia University; University of Chicago; KU Leuven
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2025.101769
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: increasing returns; bartik instruments; Private Firms; AGENCY COSTS; big data; disclosure; PROPRIETARY; INFORMATION; GROWTH; COMPETITION

摘要

We investigate the impact of reporting regulation on corporate innovation. Exploiting thresholds in Europe's regulation, we find that forcing firms to disclose financial statements reduces the number of innovating firms and the average firm's innovation spending, but it does not reduce industry-wide total innovation spending. Our results suggest that the regulation imposes proprietary costs on firms, which discourages innovation activity, especially by smaller firms. We also show that the regulation provides positive information spillovers to other firms (e.g., competitors, suppliers, and customers), especially larger ones. We complement our analysis with alternative innovation measures, including patents, and corroborate the results with an analysis of reporting changes due to an enforcement reform in Germany. In sum, the European reporting regulation has aggregate and distributional effects on corporate innovation. Importantly, it appears to concentrate innovative activities among fewer, mostly larger firms, which could reflect institutional features of our setting or more general economic forces.