Using detailed data of individual investors, this dissertation investigates whether and how individuals use financial disclosure and analysts’ signals. Chapter 1 shows that, on average, individuals invest more in firms with readable, concise, and transparent financial disclosures. The results indicate that these relations are less pronounced for overconfident investors, and that individual investors appear to place a greater weighting on such financial disclosure attributes relative to institutional investors. In supplementary analyses, I further examine cross-sectional variations among individuals in their use of disclosure, and find two main subgroups that do not display a preference for accessible and transparent disclosures. The first subgroup is speculative investors, whose investment strategies rely on conjecture rather than knowledge, and the second subgroup is financially literate investors, those with lower information processing costs. These findings support the notion that more accessible and transparent disclosures are used by those individuals who need them the most: i.e., the average American. Lastly, I examine whether individuals’ investment performance varies with financial disclosure attributes and show that individuals’ returns are, on average, increasing in firms with more accessible and transparent disclosures. Chapter 2 examines how individuals react to revisions in analysts’ recommendations and earnings forecasts. First, the analyses show that individuals’ abnormal trading activity increases by 30 percent in response to analysts’ recommendation revisions and by 15 percent in response to analysts’ earnings forecast revisions. Second, the analyses indicate that 47 percent of individuals trade consistently with analyst guidance and 53 percent trade contrarian to analysts’ guidance, which opposes the belief that individuals are a homogenous group of investors. The contrarian behavior is most common in response to analyst downgrades (i.e., purchasing after downgrades) and is most evident among individuals with better prior performance, individuals who trade infrequently, men, and older individuals. Lastly, the study provides evidence suggesting that trading contrarian to analysts is in general hazardous to individuals’ financial health. Taken together, the results indicate that individuals respond to analyst guidance and that individuals’ use of analyst guidance varies significantly with respect to their personal attributes.

Using detailed data of individual investors, this dissertation investigates whether and how individuals use financial disclosure and analysts’ signals. Chapter 1 shows that, on average, individuals invest more in firms with readable, concise, and transparent financial disclosures. The results indicate that these relations are less pronounced for overconfident investors, and that individual investors appear to place a greater weighting on such financial disclosure attributes relative to institutional investors. In supplementary analyses, I further examine cross-sectional variations among individuals in their use of disclosure, and find two main subgroups that do not display a preference for accessible and transparent disclosures. The first subgroup is speculative investors, whose investment strategies rely on conjecture rather than knowledge, and the second subgroup is financially literate investors, those with lower information processing costs. These findings support the notion that more accessible and transparent disclosures are used by those individuals who need them the most: i.e., the average American. Lastly, I examine whether individuals’ investment performance varies with financial disclosure attributes and show that individuals’ returns are, on average, increasing in firms with more accessible and transparent disclosures. Chapter 2 examines how individuals react to revisions in analysts’ recommendations and earnings forecasts. First, the analyses show that individuals’ abnormal trading activity increases by 30 percent in response to analysts’ recommendation revisions and by 15 percent in response to analysts’ earnings forecast revisions. Second, the analyses indicate that 47 percent of individuals trade consistently with analyst guidance and 53 percent trade contrarian to analysts’ guidance, which opposes the belief that individuals are a homogenous group of investors. The contrarian behavior is most common in response to analyst downgrades (i.e., purchasing after downgrades) and is most evident among individuals with better prior performance, individuals who trade infrequently, men, and older individuals. Lastly, the study provides evidence suggesting that trading contrarian to analysts is in general hazardous to individuals’ financial health. Taken together, the results indicate that individuals respond to analyst guidance and that individuals’ use of analyst guidance varies significantly with respect to their personal attributes.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2009.

Social capital is critical to the entities' disciplinary environment and the ability to produce high quality financial reports. Although prior literature on for-profit setting indicates that social capital impacts both governance (Ferris, et al., 2017) and financial reporting quality (Jha & Chen, 2015; Jha, 2019), this area has received less attention in non-profit literature. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the impact of the social capital of a non-profit organization's (NPO) headquarter area (also known as community social capital) on the NPO governance and disclosure quality (i.e., the quality of Form 990). The study hypothesizes and finds that the community social capital of an NPO headquarter area has a positive impact on its governance. The positive relationship suggests that NPO social capital and governance play a complementary role, where managers in high social capital face strong disciplinary environment and enjoy strong social connections and professional reputations and thus have fewer incentives to resist the adoption of sound governance practices. Similarly, the study also hypothesizes and finds that the community social capital of an NPO headquarter area has a positive impact on its disclosure quality. This finding suggests that community social capital disciplines NPO self-interested managers' behavior to manipulate financial numbers in Form 990 disclosures. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (PhD)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has recently required auditors to disclose critical audit matters (CAMs), which are financial statement matters that involve especially challenging, subjective, or complex auditor judgments. The PCAOB contends that CAMs will increase the decision usefulness of the auditor’s report and indirectly benefit investors by increasing audit and financial reporting quality. I examine whether investors react to CAM disclosures and whether they perceive any change in adopting firms’ financial reporting quality. Using a difference-in-differences design, I find that (1) while there is no significant stock price reaction to CAMs on average, investors react negatively to CAMs disclosed by firms with high levels of short interest; (2) there is a significant increase in the quarterly earnings response coefficient for adopting firms. The effect is driven by big-N audit firms, and increases with the number of CAMs reported. Collectively, the evidence suggests that investors use CAMs to confirm their pre-existing opinions about a firm, and that they perceive an improvement in audit quality and financial reporting reliability due to the CAM disclosure requirement.

Abstract Given the increasing concern for the global environmental issues and the related need for preservation of the ecosystem, voluntary non-financial disclosure has become more and more important to almost all economies today. However, empirical literature shows findings that are mixed, inconsistent and often contradictory; ranging from positive, to negative, to statistically insignificant relationships. Hence, this study aimed to assess the impact of voluntary non-financial disclosure on selected listed companies. In terms of scope, the study involves 50 Swedish companies with mandatory non-financial disclosure requirements and 76 international companies with voluntary non-financial disclosure. A period of 7 years was considered in the study that secondary data of manufacturing firms from 2014 to 2020 is used. Results showed that energy management and corporate social responsibility have a negative but insignificant impact on profitibility. Whilst diversity on board showed a positive impact on profitability, this impact was insignificant. Size of the firm was the only variable which showed a positive significant impact on profitability. It was concluded that disclosure of information on energy management, corporate social responsibility and diversity on board have no significant impact on financial performance of manufacturing companies regardless of whether they engage in voluntary or mandatory non-financial disclosure. More so, it was concluded that voluntary non-financial disclosure has no short-term impact on profitability of manufacturing firms.

In September 1979, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued a statement entitled Financial Reporting and Changing Prices (FASB No. 33). FASB No. 33 requires publicly-held companies of a certain size to issue supplementary constant dollar and current cost disclosures along with their primary financial statements.To investigate the effect of the signals on security prices the study used a methodology known as "Iso-beta Portfolio Analysis" and employed different models in conjunction with the methodology, the market model (MM) and a new model called "the multi-index model" (MIM). Cluster analysis was used to develop the indexing used with the MIM.

Yes / In this paper, we investigate whether intellectual capital (IC) and financial disclosures jointly affect the firm’s cost of equity capital. In contrast to prior research, we disaggregate disclosures into IC and financial disclosures and examine whether the two disclosure types are jointly related to the cost of equity capital. We also investigate whether IC and financial disclosures have an interaction effect on the cost of equity capital. Using data for a sample of 125 UK firms, we find a negative relationship between the cost of equity capital and IC disclosure. We find that the relationship between financial disclosure and the cost of equity capital is magnified when combined with IC disclosure. Additionally, we find that IC and financial disclosures interact in shaping their effects on the cost of equity capital. Further analyses suggest that the effect of financial disclosure on the cost of equity capital is augmented for firms characterised by a medium level of IC disclosure. These results provide important insights into the relationship between disclosures and cost of equity capital and have policy and practical implications.

I develop a general equilibrium model to examine the innovation and welfare effects of expanding mandatory financial disclosure to a broader set of firms. In the model, disclosure by relatively small firms reveals proprietary information about their local markets, which helps larger firms enter and compete. Consistent with previous empirical findings, the model predicts that mandatory disclosure encourages (discourages) innovation by larger (smaller) firms. More importantly, I identify conditions for when expanding the scope of disclosure regulation increases aggregate innovation and/or welfare. I structurally estimate the model using innovation data and plausibly exogenous variation in the extent of disclosure regulation in Europe. My estimates suggest that subjecting 15% more firms to full reporting requirements decreases aggregate innovation by around -0.26% but increases welfare by around 1%. This disparity is driven by the fact that production shifts to larger firms that innovate less but are more efficient in exploiting the fruits of innovations.

Conventional wisdom suggests that firm’s patenting choice is largely due to strategic considerations such as industry competition and the prominence of the invention. We explore this issue from a managerial discretion perspective, suggesting that patenting choice facilitates managerial discretion via earnings management. On the one hand, not filing patents generates a more opaque information environment for market scrutiny, suggesting higher chance of earnings management. On the other hand, stewardship theory indicates that managers use trade secrets to protect their intellectual property. We find that non-patenting firms do not engage in financial earnings management while their real activity based earnings management is lower than patenting counterparts. On average, non-patenting choice does not lead to harmful opaqueness.