Publications

January 26, 2016
Article

Hiding Personal Information Reveals the Worst

By: Leslie K. John, Kate Barasz and Michael I. Norton

Seven experiments explore people's decisions to share or withhold personal information and the wisdom of such decisions. When people choose not to reveal information—to be "hiders"—they are judged negatively by others (experiment 1). These negative judgments emerge... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; Transparency; Policy-making; Privacy; Information; Corporate Disclosure; Decision Choices and Conditions; Trust

November 2018 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Tesla, Inc. in 2018

By: Siko Sikochi, Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

On August 7, 2018 Elon Musk, Chairman and CEO of Tesla tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private and had secured funding. Weeks went by without details about a deal and speculation grew that Musk had misled investors. He soon abandoned the idea, but the... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure Regulation; Board Independence; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Governing and Advisory Boards

May 2019
Article

Who Consumes Firm Disclosures? Evidence from Earnings Conference Calls

By: Anne Heinrichs, Jihwon Park and Eugene F. Soltes

Using a set of proprietary records, we examine who consumes quarterly earnings conference calls and under which circumstances the calls are consumed. While there is significant interest in calls by institutional investors and sell-side analysts, we find that investors... View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; Conference Calls; Firm News; Corporate Disclosure; Business Earnings; Situation or Environment

November 29, 2005
Comment

Transparency Needed in Berkeley Lab Nanotechnology

By: Michael W. Toffel

Argues that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory should be significantly more transparent about the health and environmental issues associated with its new nanotechnology facility. View Details

Keywords: Disclosure; Transparency; Nanotechnology; Precautionary Principle; Corporate Disclosure

May 2011
Article

Consequences and Institutional Determinants of Unregulated Corporate Financial Statements: Evidence from Embedded Value Reporting

By: George Serafeim

I analyze Embedded Value (EV) reporting by firms with life insurance operations to assess the impact of unregulated financial reporting on transparency and to examine the institutional characteristics that promote unregulated reporting. Under EV accounting the present... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Reporting; Cash Flow; Contracts; Equity; Profit; Value; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business Earnings

23 May 2000
Research & Ideas

Minding the Muse: The Impact of Downsizing on Corporate Creativity

Not long ago, the senior management of a leading high-tech company was surprised to learn that research showed their R&D groups' creative performance to be in a prolonged slump following a corporate downsizing. The company's... View Details

Keywords: by Peter K. Jacobs

February 2011 (Revised August 2011)
Supplement

Accounting for Catastrophes: BP PLC and Union Carbide Corporation (B)

By: David F. Hawkins and Aldo Sesia

The BP Mexican Gulf Oil spill requires BP to recognize or at least disclose investor-relevant information. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Accounting; Natural Disasters; Pollutants; Energy Sources; Energy Industry; Mining Industry; North America

September 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Case

Wal-Mart Lobbying in India?

By: Karthik Ramanna and Vidhya Muthuram

In 2012, as part of a routine disclosure under U.S. law, Wal-Mart revealed it had spent $25 million since 2008 on lobbying to "enhance market access for investment in India." This disclosure, which came weeks after the Indian government made a controversial decision to... View Details

Keywords: Lobbying; India; Multinational Corporations; Business and Government Relations; Crime and Corruption; Retail Industry; India

October 2018 (Revised September 2022)
Case

Stock-Based Compensation at Twitter

By: Jonas Heese, Zeya Yang and Mike Young

Olivia Nash, an analyst at leading hedge fund BlueShark Capital Management, had just finished listening to the hour-long earnings call for Twitter’s Q4 2017 results. Was Twitter doing well? That depended on which numbers she chose to believe. According to Generally... View Details

Keywords: Twitter; Non-GAAP Disclosure; Stock-based Compensation; Earnings Management; Corporate Disclosure; Compensation and Benefits; Stocks; Measurement and Metrics

March 2016 (Revised April 2019)
Technical Note

ESG Metrics: Reshaping Capitalism?

By: George Serafeim

In the past twenty-five years, the world had seen an exponential growth in the number of companies reporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. Investor interest in ESG data also grew rapidly. A growing belief that increasing levels of social inequality... View Details

Keywords: Capitalism; Sustainability; Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Responsibilities To Society; Environment; Social Impact Investment; ESG; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Measurement and Metrics; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Accountability; Accounting; Economic Systems

Editorial

Why CEOs Should Share Their Long-Term Plans with Investors

By: Christina Rehnberg, George Serafeim and Brian Tomlinson

Rather than requiring less short-term information, the key to combating short-termism is to encourage companies to share more information about their long-term plans. Analysis of companies that have done so suggests that long-term plans are not mere marketing... View Details

Keywords: CEO; Investor Relations; Disclosure; Long-term Growth; Investing; Business and Shareholder Relations; Strategy; Corporate Disclosure

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2022
Working Paper

ESG: Hyperboles and Reality

By: George Serafeim

ESG has rapidly become a household name leading to both confusion about what it means and creating unrealistic expectations about its effects. In this paper, I draw on more than a decade of research to dispel several myths about ESG and provide answers to important... View Details

Keywords: ESG; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; ESG Disclosure; ESG Reporting; ESG Ratings; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Performance; Corporate Disclosure; Reports

SSRN

September 2023
Article

Stock Price Reactions to ESG News: The Role of ESG Ratings and Disagreement

By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon

We investigate whether ESG ratings predict future ESG news and the associated market reactions. We find that the consensus rating predicts future news, but its predictive ability diminishes for firms with large disagreement between raters. Relation between news and... View Details

SSRN

2022
Article

The Effects of Public and Private Equity Markets on Firm Behavior

By: Shai Bernstein

In this article, I review the theoretical and empirical literature on the effects of public and private equity markets on firm behavior, emphasizing the consequences that emerge from disclosure requirements, ownership concentration, and degree of firm standardization.... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Finance And Governance; Financing Policy; Commercialization; Capital Markets; Private Equity; Public Equity; Venture Capital; Innovation and Invention; Cost of Capital

September 2012 (Revised November 2012)
Case

Integrated Reporting in South Africa

This case presents a 20-year history of the evolution of corporate governance and corporate reporting in South Africa starting in 1992 with a focus on the three King codes of corporate governance (King I in 1994, King II in 2000, and King III in 2009). From a reporting... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Reporting; Sustainability Reporting; Stock Exchanges; South Africa; Corporate Reporting; Regulation; Nonfinancial Performance; History; Corporate Disclosure; Markets; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Performance; Corporate Governance; South Africa

April 2010
Article

Executive Pay and 'Independent' Compensation Consultants

By: K. J. Murphy and Tatiana Sandino

Executive compensation consultants face potential conflicts of interest that can lead to higher recommended levels of CEO pay, including the desires to "cross-sell" services and to secure "repeat business." We find evidence in both the US and Canada that CEO pay is... View Details

Keywords: Compensation Consultants; Conflicts Of Interest; CEO Pay; Board Of Directors; Director Pay; Disclosure; Conflict of Interests; Governing and Advisory Boards; Corporate Disclosure; Executive Compensation; Corporate Governance; Consulting Industry; Canada; United States

SSRN

Article

Managing the Narrative: Investor Relations Officers and Their Interactions with Sell-Side Analysts and Institutional Investors

By: Lawrence D. Brown, Andrew C. Call, Michael B. Clement and Nathan Y. Sharp

Investor relations officers (IROs) play a central role in corporate communications with Wall Street. We survey 610 IROs at U.S. public companies and conduct 14 follow-up interviews to deepen our understanding of the role of IROs in corporate disclosure events. Three... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Power and Influence; Business and Shareholder Relations

February 2017 (Revised June 2017)
Supplement

ExxonMobil: Business as Usual? (B)

By: George Serafeim, Shiva Rajgopal and David Freiberg

The case presents ExxonMobil's response to growing pressure to disclose how climate change will impact their business. This includes multiple asset impairments and losing a proxy vote to shareholders to increase climate change related reporting. Supplements the (B)... View Details

Keywords: Oil ＆ Gas; Oil Prices; Oil Companies; Asset Impairment; Predictive Analytics; Sustainability; Environmental Impact; Innovation; Disclosure; Accounting; Valuation; Energy Sources; Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Governance Compliance; Climate Change; Financial Reporting; Energy Industry; United States