Essays on disclosure

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Verrecchia, RE
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING & ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0165-4101
• DOI: 10.1016/S0165-4101(01)00025-8
• 发表日期: 2001
• 关键词: rational-expectations equilibrium; price-signal relations; trading volume; private information; public signals; voluntary disclosures; ANALYSTS FORECASTS; capital-markets; social value; aggregation

摘要

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, I attempt a taxonomy of the extant accounting literature on disclosure: that is, a categorization of the various models of disclosure in the literature into well-integrated topics. With regard to the taxonomy, I suggest three broad categories of disclosure research in accounting. The first category, which I dub association-based disclosure, is work that studies the effect of exogenous disclosure on the cumulative change or disruption in investors' individual actions, primarily through the behavior of asset equilibrium prices and trading volume. The second category, which I dub discretionary-based disclosure, is work that examines how managers and/or firms exercise discretion with regard to the disclosure of information about which they may have knowledge. The third category, which I dub efficiency-based disclosure, is work that discusses which disclosure arrangements are preferred in the absence of prior knowledge of the information, that is, preferred unconditionally. Then, in the final section of the paper, I recommend information asymmetry reduction as one potential starting point for a comprehensive theory of disclosure. That is, I recommend information asymmetry reduction as a vehicle to integrate the efficiency of disclosure choice, the incentives to disclose, and the endogeneity of the capital market process as it involves the interactions among individual and diverse investors. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.