Market Determinants of Voluntary Disclosure of Macroeconomic Effects on Corporate Performance

Abstract

The macroeconomic environment is an important determinant of firm performance. Nevertheless, many firms are simplistic in the approach they use to identify, analyze and create strategies for managing the vital relationship between intrinsic competitiveness and macroeconomic fluctuations. Few firms disclose this information to outside stakeholders, which means they are prevented from understanding the intrinsic performance. We analyze the effects of the implementation/development of IFRS/IAS 1 on voluntary macroeconomic information disclosure with a focus on information content and market determinants. We base our analysis on a sample of the 100 largest public European firms in the period 2000-2009. We find that the trend of disclosure quality is positive but the overall level of information is still insufficient. The introduction and development of IFRS has little impact on macroeconomic information disclosure quality. The main drivers of the disclosure of voluntary macroeconomic information are found to be corporate governance and cross-listing.