Company Websites: A New Measure of Disclosure

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Boulland, Romain; Bourveau, Thomas; Breuer, Matthias
• 署名单位: ESSEC Business School; University of Oxford; Goethe University Frankfurt
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-8456; 1475-679X
• DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.70007
• 发表日期: 2026-03
• 页码: 81-125
• 关键词: websites; disclosure; Private Firms; PRIVATE EQUITY; ESG; management forecasts; INFORMATION; MARKET; LEVEL; cost; RISK; dissemination; TRANSPARENCY; statements; liquidity

摘要

We propose a new measure of firms' disclosure based on company websites, which are widely available and contain a wealth of information. For a sample of U.S. public firms, we construct our disclosure measure using historical website data, validate it by correlating it with extant measures of disclosure and information asymmetry, and explore its determinants. We then apply our measure to the study of U.S. private firms' disclosure and French firms' compliance with a nonfinancial disclosure mandate. Our applications illustrate that our website-based measure provides a useful complement to extant measures of disclosure, which are more narrowly focused on investors in public capital markets.