We provide an economics-based review of the pros and cons of ESG disclosures, emphasizing environmental disclosures from an investor-centric perspective. Our survey intends to guide corporate management and regulators in navigating the ESG disclosure terrain. Rather than summarizing the vast and growing ESG literature, we assess the economic arguments for ESG disclosure regulation and the form of this disclosure. We discuss investors’ demand for ESG information and its supply by publicly traded firms. We analyze the case for and against mandatory ESG disclosure. Finally, we weigh the efficiency of disclosure requirement characteristics, assuming mandatory ESG disclosure is warranted. We intend to be positive rather than prescriptive, providing a line of reasoning readers can employ to reach their own conclusions about what we ought to do.

This study examines the consequences of tax key audit matters (KAMs) to the valuation of tax attributes and to auditor-provided tax services (APTS). The literature finds that KAM adoption is not associated with investor or audit outcomes, creating an impetus to identify whether specific KAM topics are more consequential. Tax KAMs are an ideal setting because they are prevalent, taxes are economically important, and auditors can provide tax services to their clients. We find that investors discount the tax avoidance and deferred tax assets of tax-KAM companies, suggesting an incentive for managers to avoid tax KAMs. Consistent with self-interest threats to auditor independence, we find that receiving a tax KAM is negatively associated with clients’ concurrent purchases of APTS, but that clients increase their future purchases of these services when they stop receiving tax KAMs. These results reveal novel consequences of tax KAMs to the valuation of companies’ tax attributes and to APTS incentives.

We examine the association between CEO birthplace proximity and financial misconduct. We find that CEOs managing firms near their birthplaces (home CEOs) are associated with less financial misconduct compared to other CEOs. This association is not attributable to differences in corporate governance. The relationship strengthens in areas with a strong local investment presence and greater religious commitment as well as among CEOs with longer tenures in their home state. Our findings are robust to addressing potential selection and omitted variable biases as well as to conducting multiple robustness tests, including analyses of involuntary CEO changes and headquarters relocations. We also find a similar association for CFOs, with firms employing home CFOs exhibiting less financial misconduct.