We analyze nearly 7,000 shareholder activist campaigns across 56 countries and show that shareholder activism is now a global phenomenon. Our analyses provide evidence on factors that explain the spread of activism and two related questions. First, we measure the extent to which country-level governance regulations facilitate shareholder engagement, a necessary condition for activism, and show that our measure of shareholder-empowering governance regulation explains cross-country variation in the emergence of activism. Second, we show that changes in these regulations also affect outcomes for firms that face a high threat of activism but that are not targeted by activists (i.e., there are spillovers)—including increased profitability, higher payouts, and reduced investment. These effects are most pronounced in countries with weak minority shareholder rights, where activism had previously been relatively unimportant

I examine how banks change their risk management practices in response to the private disclosure of regulatory ratings that summarize bank risk-taking. Upon ratings disclosure, affected banks increase the timeliness of their loan loss provisioning. These effects are concentrated among banks that lie below key rating thresholds and those headquartered in states with low competition. After ratings disclosure, deficient banks decrease commercial lending while shifting assets into cash. Overall, my findings highlight how performance measures produced and privately disclosed by a third party can influence actions within a firm.

Advocacy groups have responded to the lack of political solutions to some of the greatest problems we face—from climate change to armed conflicts—by lobbying for securities regulation that increases corporate transparency. They aim to incentivize corporations to address problems that lack other political solutions. I discuss what we can (and cannot) learn about the efficacy of reporting mandates from the findings in Darendeli et al. (2022) and related papers that stakeholders respond to greater availability of corporate social responsibility information. I support my arguments with evidence from mandatory conflict mineral disclosures—to date, the only related US securities regulation. Although stakeholder responses are likely necessary to incentivize changes in corporate behavior, they are insufficient to justify a mandate. A convincing justification must explain how reporting mandates lead to socially beneficial real effects, are best overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and are less costly than alternative policy instruments. So far, proponents of reporting mandates have, at best, provided incomplete justifications. These circumstances are problematic given the current push for mandatory reporting related to issues such as climate change and workplace diversity

One of the most significant capital market developments over the last two decades has been the growth of private capital markets—markets that raise capital outside of publicly traded venues and can face substantially less mandated public financial reporting. Understanding the causes and consequences of the relative growth of private capital markets is a first order research question. As private capital markets have grown, interest in regulating and researching private markets has increased. Research that is informative about the costs and benefits of regulating private capital markets should be in high demand. Kim and Olbert (2022, KO hereafter) dive into this arena to ask whether additional private firm disclosure affects public capital markets. KO find that as private firms disclose more financial statement information, the public equity holdings of mutual funds and ETFs decline. KO infer from their findings that increased private company disclosure results in negative pecuniary externalities for public companies. In this paper, I discuss KO's intriguing findings and suggest areas where research can build off and sharpen the inferences of this paper. In particular, future work can validate KO's measure of private company disclosure and consider the causal mechanism for investment in private firms

The distribution of power in the political system shapes the financial reporting opacity of banks. Specifically, banks located in states with senators on the Senate Banking Committee (BC senators) have greater abnormal loan loss provisions than banks in other states. The result is stronger for larger banks and banks with higher risk. In addition, BC senators have a negative effect on the likelihood of banks in their home states receiving enforcement actions, and, more importantly, this effect is stronger for more opaque banks. These findings suggest that politicians, regulators, and banks use opaque financial reporting to facilitate regulatory forbearance. Moreover, we show that opacity is a significant channel through which BC senators increase bank risk. During economic downturns, however, BC senators appear to promote bank opacity to encourage bank lending and create liquidity. Finally, the capital market does not penalize the reporting opacity of banks in states with BC senators

SEC confidential treatment (CT) orders are regulatory exemptions that enable firms to redact proprietary information from SEC filings if the disclosure would cause competitive harm and if the information is immaterial to investors. This study examines the role of firms' political connections in the SEC's decisions to approve versus reject CT requests before and after Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny into the CT process. CT requests from politically connected firms are less likely to be rejected before Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny and are more likely to be rejected following these events. When the SEC rejects CT requests, firms must disclose the contents of the unapproved redactions. These disclosures are informative to investors, on average, and are less informative following Congressional intervention and internal SEC scrutiny. Together, these findings contribute to the literature on political influence in SEC oversight and disclosure regulation and provide unique evidence on the role of Congressional intervention in SEC decision making