Factors Influencing Firms' Disclosures about Environmental Liabilities

Mary E. Barth, Maureen F. McNichols and G. Peter Wilson
Additional contact information
Mary E. Barth: Stanford University
Maureen F. McNichols: Stanford University
G. Peter Wilson: Stanford University

Review of Accounting Studies, 1997, vol. 2, issue 1, No 2, 35-64

Abstract: Abstract This paper examines factors related to environmental liability disclosure decisions for firms in industries with substantial Superfund site involvement. We hypothesize that the extent of disclosure about environmental liabilities is associated with five factors: (1) regulation, including enforcement activity, (2) managements' information, including site uncertainty and allocation uncertainty, (3) litigation and negotiation concerns, (4) capital market concerns, and (5) other regulatory influence. Our empirical tests examine the association between measures of environmental liability disclosure, based on disclosures in firms' annual reports and Forms 10-K, and proxies for the five factors, based on information from other public sources, including the EPA. We find that all of our hypothesized factors except site uncertainty significantly influence firms' environmental disclosure decisions.

Keywords: Annual Report; Capital Market; Public Finance; Empirical Test; Enforcement Activity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1023/A:1018321610509 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:reaccs:v:2:y:1997:i:1:d:10.1023_a:1018321610509

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/accounting/journal/11142

DOI: 10.1023/A:1018321610509

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Accounting Studies is currently edited by Paul Fischer

More articles in Review of Accounting Studies from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().