Disclosure Incentives and Effects on Cost of Capital around the World
利用34国数据，发现依赖外部融资的企业自愿披露水平更高，且更高披露能降低债务和权益资本成本；跨国差异影响披露水平，但披露激励独立于国家因素。
Prior research predicts that firms reliant on external financing are more likely to undertake a higher level of disclosure, and a higher disclosure level should, in turn, lead to a lower cost of external financing. This paper tests these predictions outside the United States where alternative legal and financial systems could mitigate the effectiveness of such disclosures and, comprehensively, examines both disclosure incentives and disclosure consequences on cost of capital for a common set of firms. Using a sample from 34 countries, we find that firms in industries with greater external financing needs have higher voluntary disclosure levels, and that an expanded disclosure policy for these firms leads to a lower cost of both debt and equity capital. Crosscountry differences in legal and financial systems affect observed disclosure levels in predicted ways. However, a surprising result in the study is that voluntary disclosure incentives appear to operate independently of country-level factors, which suggests the effectiveness of voluntary disclosure in gaining access to lower cost external financing around the world.