Mandatory disclosure and asymmetry in financial reporting
This paper examines the demand for disclosure rules by informed managers interested in
increasing the market price of their firms. Within a model of political influence, a majority
of managers chooses disclosure rules with which all firms must comply. In equilibrium,
disclosure rules are asymmetric with greater levels of disclosure over adverse events.
This asymmetry is positively associated with the informativeness of the measurement and
increasing in the level of verifiability and ex-ante uncertainty of the information. The
theory also offers implications about the relation between mandatory and voluntary
disclosure, when both channels are endogenous.
his study develops a rationale for the existence of asymmetric financial reporting rules mandating disclosures of
unfavorable economic events. This characteristic is shared by a broad set of accounting rules, generally referred to as
impairment accounting; impairments are an archetype for many existing measurement rules as illustrated by impairment
tests, lower of cost or market or contingent liabilities. Moreover, beyond pure impairment accounting, the asymmetric
reporting of bad news is a key institutional fact that permeates the very foundations of financial reporting, from the goingconcern
opinion issued by an external auditor to the stricter enforcement by courts of law over material omissions of
adverse events.