Managers have strong incentives to present a favorable image of their companies to investors, analysts, and the public, raising concerns about the credibility of voluntary disclosures. These concerns are particularly severe for unaudited forward-looking disclosures because they are often qualitative …

Over the last decade, investors and other stakeholders have demonstrated a preference for firms that embrace good environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices. It is natural, therefore for firms to try to improve their ESG profiles through ESG disclosures. The …

Dual-class stock structures have proliferated in recent years. In 2017-2019, almost 30 percent of IPOs in the U.S. had a dual-class structure, and most of them were founder-controlled technology firms (Aggarwal, Eldar, Hochberg and Litov, 2020). Their increasing popularity has …

In response to extreme weather events, regulators and standard setters are developing climate-related reporting requirements and standards. The thinking behind making disclosure of firms’ climate-related risks mandatory is that it will allow the market to price these risks, thereby using …

On March 30, 2022, the SEC proposed much-anticipated regulations governing Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”), which provide an alternative route for a company to be traded on a national exchange without undertaking the cumbersome process of an initial public offering …

The rise of private markets and the proliferation of “unicorns” (private startup companies valued at $1 billion or more) has diminished the SEC’s power and reach. Back in 2021, the agency signaled a plan to reassert itself by forcing unicorns …

High CEO pay in the United States has fueled repeated calls for enhanced disclosure of chief executives’ compensation. For example, in 2015 the SEC received over 285,000 comment letters supporting its proposed rule to require disclosure of CEO-employee pay ratios. …

Environmental and social (E&S) considerations have become integral to investment decisions in the past two decades, and more public firms are making E&S disclosures. Meanwhile, dozens of ESG reporting frameworks have emerged, and many jurisdictions have issued or are in …

Earnings conference calls are an important way for firms to communicate with external stakeholders. Equity shareholders, buy-side and sell-side analysts, debtholders, and other capital market participants view the calls as informative beyond the contemporaneous earnings announcements. Yet, little is known …

Fueled by the landmark decision in Citizens United, which granted corporations essentially the same political speech rights as humans, corporations continually attempt to control political outcomes, ostensibly to promote shareholder value.[1]  During the 2022 election cycle, corporations and business …

Corporate disclosures increasingly include multimedia content such as audio, images, and videos. In fact, as of 2022, 83 percent of U.S. public firms used graphics in annual reports and various other communications. Additionally, companies commonly provide their earnings calls, shareholder …