Incentives for Voluntary Disclosure

Abstract

Rule l0b-5 of the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act allows investors to sue firms for misrepresentation or omission. Since firms are principal-agent contracts between owners, contract designers and privately informed managers, owners are the ultimate firms' voluntary disclosure strategists. We analyze voluntary disclosure equilibrium in a game with two types of owners: expected liquidating dividends motivated (VMO) and expected price motivated (PMO). We find that Rule l0b-5: (i) does not deter misrepresentation and may suppress voluntary disclosure or, (ii) induces some firms to adopt a partial disclosure policy of disclosing only bad news or only good news.

Keywords: Rule l0b-5, disclosure, noisy rational expectations equilibrium, principal-agent contracts, incentives

JEL Classification: G10, G30, K22, D82