Geographic earnings disclosure and trading volume

Ole-Kristian Hope, Wayne B. Thomas and Glyn Winterbotham

Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 2009, vol. 28, issue 3, 167-188

Abstract: Beginning with Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 131 (SFAS 131), Disclosures about Segments of an Enterprise and Related Information, most US multinational firms no longer disclose geographic earnings in their annual reports. Given the recent growth in foreign operations of US firms and the varying operating environments around the world, information (or lack thereof) related to geographical performance can affect investors' information set. Using empirical tests that closely follow the [Kim, O., Verrecchia, R., 1997. Pre-announcement and event-period private information. Journal of Accounting and Economics 24, 395-419] model, we find results consistent with their predictions. Specifically, using a sample of firms with substantial foreign operations, we find evidence of a decrease in event period private information following adoption of SFAS 131 for firms that no longer disclose geographic earnings. These results suggest that decreased public information (i.e., non-disclosure of geographic earnings) reduces the ability of investors to utilize or generate private information in conjunction with the public announcement of quarterly earnings, which dampens trading. We also find evidence of a decrease in pre-announcement private information following adoption of SFAS 131. This is consistent with an overall improvement in public disclosures that has the effect of reducing differences in the precision of private information across investors in the period prior to the earnings announcement. However, such an effect is observed for both firms which no longer disclose geographic earnings and for firms that continue to disclose geographic earnings.

Keywords: Geographic; segment; disclosures; Trading; volume; SFAS; 131; Multinational; firms; Pre-announcement; private; information; Event-period; private; information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278-4254(09)00018-0
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jappol:v:28:y:2009:i:3:p:167-188

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Accounting and Public Policy is currently edited by L. A. Gordon

More articles in Journal of Accounting and Public Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().