A cost benefit study of voluntary disclosure: some empirical evidence from French listed companies
Author:
- Florence DepoersFDFlorence Depoers
- 1 July 2000
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in European Accounting Review
- Vol. 9 (2) , 245-263
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to relate the extent of disclosure in the annual reports of French listed companies to some economic determinants. The sample includes the 1995 annual reports of 102 randomly selected industrial and commercial firms. The extent of disclosure is measured by an index based on financial and non-financial discretionary information. The model of hypothesis explaining voluntary disclosure is defined as the interplay of contradictory forces: inducements deriving principally from agency theory and limitations imposed by information costs. The results reveal that voluntary disclosure is significantly related to size, foreign activity and to a proxy for proprietary costs.Keywords
This publication has 24 references indexed in Scilit:
- Information Disclosure to Employees and Rational Expectations: A Game-Theoretical PerspectiveJournal of Business Finance & Accounting, 1997
- Factors Influencing Voluntary Annual Report Disclosures By U.S., U.K. and Continental European Multinational CorporationsJournal of International Business Studies, 1995
- Voluntary Disclosure in the Annual Reports of New Zealand CompaniesJournal of International Financial Management & Accounting, 1995
- Discussion of “Disclosure of Predecision Information in a Duopoly”Contemporary Accounting Research, 1995
- The Voluntary Inclusion of Forecasts in the MD&A Section of Annual Reports*Contemporary Accounting Research, 1994
- Financial disclosure policy in an entry gameJournal of Accounting and Economics, 1990
- The Management of Corporate Financial Disclosure: Opportunism, Ritualism, Policies, and ProcessesJournal of Accounting Research, 1990
- Separation of Ownership and ControlThe Journal of Law and Economics, 1983
- The Informational Role of Warranties and Private Disclosure about Product QualityThe Journal of Law and Economics, 1981
- Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structureJournal of Financial Economics, 1976