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Do Better‐Governed Australian Firms Make More Informative Disclosures?

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  • Wendy Beekes
  • Philip Brown

Abstract

We investigate whether and if so, how, corporate governance ‘quality’1 is related to the information flows from a company and how the share market and its agents respond. Specifically, we study links between the ‘quality’ of a firm's corporate governance (CGQ) and the informativeness of its disclosures. We employ six indicators of informativeness. They include document counts, properties of analysts’ forecasts and a ‘timeliness’ metric, in the spirit of Ball and Brown (1968), that reflects the average speed of price discovery throughout the year. Our results suggest the answer to our question is ‘Yes’: better‐governed firms do make more informative disclosures.

Suggested Citation

  • Wendy Beekes & Philip Brown, 2006. "Do Better‐Governed Australian Firms Make More Informative Disclosures?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3‐4), pages 422-450, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jbfnac:v:33:y:2006:i:3-4:p:422-450
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5957.2006.00614.x
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