EPA scrutiny and voluntary environmental disclosures
研究发现美国环保署（EPA）的审查会抑制企业在财报电话会中的自愿性环境信息披露，尤其是缺乏环境专家董事的企业，且披露质量下降，揭示了环境信息流动的障碍。
Abstract Market participants have called on the SEC to address the lack of disclosures about firms’ environmental impacts, investments, and exposures. However, the frictions that obstruct the flow of environmental information are not well understood. I shed light on these frictions by examining whether scrutiny by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) restricts the firm’s voluntary environmental disclosures in earnings conference calls. Consistent with the notion that EPA scrutiny gives rise to disclosure frictions, I find a negative relation between EPA scrutiny and the environmental disclosures of scrutinized firms. This negative relation is concentrated among firms without environmental expert directors, suggesting that environmental governance mitigates the chilling effect of EPA scrutiny. In terms of disclosure quality, I show that environmental disclosures include fewer quantitative details under EPA scrutiny. Collectively, these findings provide insights into the frictions that restrict the flow of environmental information to market participants, an important issue given the SEC’s efforts to improve current disclosure practices.