The Accounting Review Vol. 97 No. 7 2022
Consequences of Prescribed Disclosure Timeliness: Evidence from Acceleration of the Form 8-K Filing Deadline
Abstract
I investigate capital market consequences of an increase in prescribed timeliness of firms' mandatory disclosure of material events. Specifically, I examine an SEC regulatory change that accelerates the Form 8-K filing deadline and classifies 8-Ks as likely to be constrained or unconstrained by the increase in prescribed timeliness. After the regulatory change, firms filing constrained 8-Ks exhibit increases in information asymmetry between investors and investor disagreement at the 8-K filing date relative to firms filing unconstrained 8-Ks. Moreover, the relative increases in information asymmetry and investor disagreement for firms filing constrained 8-Ks appear to be attributable to a decline in the length of and quantitative information included in 8-K disclosures. My findings shed light on the costs of a prescriptive approach to enhanced disclosure timeliness of ongoing disclosure. Data Availability: Data are available from public sources cited in the text.
- DOI
- 10.2308/tar-2019-0577
- Volume
- 97
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 429-463
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref