The Accounting Review Vol. 95 No. 4 2020
How Often Do Managers Withhold Information?
Abstract
We estimate a dynamic model of voluntary disclosure, using annual management forecasts of earnings, that features a manager with price motives and an uncertain, but persistent, information endowment. Our estimates imply that: (1) managers face disclosure frictions 35 percent of the time; (2) conditional on being informed, managers withhold information 17 percent of the time; and (3) conditional on being silent, managers possess information 24 percent of the time. Managers' strategic withholding motives increase investors' uncertainty about earnings by 3 percent. We find that managers' price motives reduce strategic withholding by one-third in response to investors' increased skepticism in the event of non-disclosure.
- DOI
- 10.2308/accr-52619
- Volume
- 95
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 73-102
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref