Despite the benefits of greater transparency, public disclosures may reveal proprietary information that ultimately harms the disclosing firm by allowing competitors to view and imitate its strategies, an activity known as “copycatting.” An SEC proposal in July 2020 to increase …

Firm managers spend substantial time meeting privately with analysts and investors (e.g., Thomson Reuters 2009; Soltes 2014; Brown, Call, Clement, and Sharp 2015; Bushee, Gerakos, and Lee 2018). As evidenced by a wealth of anecdotes and surveys, such private communications …

Commission-free trading apps like Robinhood and coordinated action by retail investors on Twitter, WallStreetBets, and other social media have created an unprecedented force on Wall Street that specifically targets short sellers. One result has been a massive run-up in the …

Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted the conflict minerals disclosure (CMD) rule, which requires issuers to perform due diligence on “conflict minerals” – natural resources known to fuel conflicts in underdeveloped nations – that …

In 2021, 359 SPACs have raised $95 billion, surpassing the $74 billion raised by 254 SPACs in 2020. The growth in this market might mean that sophisticated investors are using a regulatory loophole to avoid IPO disclosure regulations in taking …

Once upon a time, a successful startup that reached a certain maturity would “go public” – selling securities to ordinary investors, perhaps listing on a national stock exchange, and taking on the privileges and obligations of a public company under …

The JOBS Act was signed into law on April 5, 2012, with the objective of improving access to the public capital market for growth companies. Title I of the JOBS Act amended the Securities Act and the Exchange Act and …

Each year, U.S. public companies spend millions of people-hours producing the securities disclosures that undergird public capital markets. But relatively little is known about how firms produce such consequential information, including whether they are spending too much, too little, or …

In recent years, the number of enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has declined significantly, which has led to questions about the SEC’s effectiveness. While several potential explanations exist for this decline, SEC officials have often pointed …

On July 10, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a proposal to increase the reporting threshold for Form 13F from $100 million to $3.5 billion. Form 13F was adopted in 1975 and required managers with more than $100 …