Essays on enforcement and disclosure

Abstract

My dissertation examines public disclosure through two essays. In my first essay, “How do online conflict disclosures support enforcement? Evidence from personal financial disclosures and public corruption,” I study the effect of online publication of public officials’ financial disclosures on anti-corruption enforcement. I find that online publication of these disclosures increases detection and prosecution of local corruption. To understand the mechanism behind these results, I conduct field interviews of state ethics commissions, federal prosecutors, and journalists. I determine that these enforcement benefits are likely driven by reduced investigation costs and increased public awareness of financial conflicts. This work contributes to current disclosure research by showing how the medium of public disclosure can generate enforcement benefits by reducing information processing costs.

My second essay, “Creating firm disclosures” with Eugene F. Soltes and Amir Amel-Zadeh, seeks to uncover how firms create public disclosures. Our study is motivated by prior accounting literature which links variation in firms’ disclosure style to investor perceptions of firms. However, firms’ internal processes for creating disclosures – who is involved, how much effort is expended, when managers get involved – remains a black box. Our paper contributes to this literature by documenting significant variation in the ways firms prepare disclosures. We also find that these differences in preparation practices are associated with differences in the style and tone of corporate disclosures in 10-Ks and conference calls.