Management Discussion and Analysis: Discretionary Disclosures and The Business Segment.
调查了1984年100家美国公司年报中管理层讨论与分析部分的披露情况，发现不同行业在流动性、收入、通胀和分部信息等方面的披露差异显著。
Abstract This article focuses on a survey of the management discussion and analysis (MD&A) coverage in 1984 annual reports representing a broad cross-section of industries. The 100 corporations were selected from the Standard and Poor's industry classification. Twenty corporations were selected from each of the following four groups: food and beverages, autos--auto parts, utilities, and oil. Only a few companies actually stated whether their liquidity was increasing or decreasing. The highest rate of disclosure came in the utility industry with 18 of the 20 firms discussing the purpose of their commitments and 17 of them discussing the source of the funds for the commitments. All but 14 companies discussed significant components of revenue and expense. Trends for sales or revenue from continuing operations were discussed by 78 companies and 75 companies disclosed events causing change in the relationship between cost and revenue. While only 11 companies discussed the inflation issue in the MD&A section of the annual report, 43 companies disclosed the effects of inflation in notes and 55 companies disclosed the inflation information in schedules. Only 60 of the annual reports surveyed made disclosures of segmental information in the management discussion and analysis section of their annual reports. Sixteen companies made no disclosures regarding segments because they regarded themselves as unitary.