Corporate Responses to Segment Disclosure Requirements

This paper shows through increasing disclosure requirements may induce firms to reduce their value-relevant disclosures. In the absence of segment reporting requirements, an incumbent firm may voluntarily disclose value-relevant information because it can use other, value-irrelevant, information to jam proprietary disclosures. However, when required to disclose segment data, the incumbent may aggregate proprietary information with other value-relevant information to deter entry by a rival. Hence, the firm does not disclose value-relevant information it would have revealed voluntarily in the absence of segment disclosure requirements. In such situations, requiring more disaggregate disclosures can actually decrease price efficiency.