We examine the relation between corporate governance and firms' information environments. We use the passage of state antitakeover laws in the U.S. as a source of exogenous variation in an important governance mechanism to identify changes in firms' information environments. We find that information asymmetry and private information gathering decreased and that financial statement informativeness increased following the passage of the antitakeover laws. Cross-sectional analyses indicate that the increased level of financial statement informativeness is attributable to firms that are most likely to access equity markets rather than managerial entrenchment, managerial career concerns, or managers' pursuit of the quiet life.

ABSTRACT Exploiting the fact that insiders trade for a variety of reasons, we show that there is predictable, identifiable “routine” insider trading that is not informative about firms’ futures. A portfolio strategy that focuses solely on the remaining “opportunistic” traders yields value‐weighted abnormal returns of 82 basis points per month, while abnormal returns associated with routine traders are essentially zero. The most informed opportunistic traders are local, nonexecutive insiders from geographically concentrated, poorly governed firms. Opportunistic traders are significantly more likely to have SEC enforcement action taken against them, and reduce trading following waves of SEC insider trading enforcement.