Common ownership and investor‐focused disclosure: Evidence from ESG financial materiality
研究了共同机构所有者如何推动企业采用增强ESG信息可比性和财务重要性的报告框架，发现共同所有权通过降低披露专有成本担忧来促进投资者导向的披露。
Abstract In this study, we investigate whether information demands made by common agents, specifically common institutional owners, drive firms to adopt a reporting framework that enhances the comparability and financial materiality of environmental, social, and governance information. Using a sample of 3659 unique US firms from 2015 to 2021, we collected data on the adoption of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board's reporting framework—identifying first movers, followers, and non‐adopting firms—and their levels of common institutional ownership. Our results are robust across changes in the levels of common institutional ownership, various combinations of fixed effects, and the application of an instrumental variable approach. Our findings support the idea that investors' demand drives comparability and financial materiality in sustainability reporting and that common ownership enhances such disclosure by alleviating the concern over the proprietary costs of revealing sensitive information. Our study offers new insights into patterns of intra‐industry disclosure behavior and a better understanding of how a group of increasingly significant market participants (i.e., common institutional owners) influences firms' commitment to investor‐focused disclosure.