Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany

Drawing on distinct German institutional characteristics related to cultural, legal, financial, and regulatory features, this paper investigates the extent to which environmental incentives influence German non-financial firms in revealing risk information in their annual report narratives. The pape...

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Main Authors: Elshandidy, Tamer, Shrives, Philip J.
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43019/
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author Elshandidy, Tamer
Shrives, Philip J.
author_facet Elshandidy, Tamer
Shrives, Philip J.
author_sort Elshandidy, Tamer
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Drawing on distinct German institutional characteristics related to cultural, legal, financial, and regulatory features, this paper investigates the extent to which environmental incentives influence German non-financial firms in revealing risk information in their annual report narratives. The paper also examines whether risk-related disclosure (aggregate risk reporting and the tone of news about risk) is useful by investigating its impact on market liquidity and investor-perceived risk. We find that the decision to provide or withhold such risk information is less likely to be significantly associated with environmental incentives. Among those incentives, we find that German firms are significantly influenced by their underlying risks rather than other factors including ownership structure, capital structure, external equity finance, and borrowing. The decision to disclose is likely to be influenced by the size of the firm and whether or not it produces lengthy annual reports. The results also suggest that the impact of aggregate risk reporting levels was not observable until a distinction was made between bad and good news about risk. Specifically, we find that the German market tends to positively (negatively) price good (bad) news about risk by either improving (worsening) market liquidity through removing (creating) information asymmetries, or reducing (increasing) investor-perceived risk.
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spelling nottingham-430192020-05-04T19:59:40Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43019/ Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany Elshandidy, Tamer Shrives, Philip J. Drawing on distinct German institutional characteristics related to cultural, legal, financial, and regulatory features, this paper investigates the extent to which environmental incentives influence German non-financial firms in revealing risk information in their annual report narratives. The paper also examines whether risk-related disclosure (aggregate risk reporting and the tone of news about risk) is useful by investigating its impact on market liquidity and investor-perceived risk. We find that the decision to provide or withhold such risk information is less likely to be significantly associated with environmental incentives. Among those incentives, we find that German firms are significantly influenced by their underlying risks rather than other factors including ownership structure, capital structure, external equity finance, and borrowing. The decision to disclose is likely to be influenced by the size of the firm and whether or not it produces lengthy annual reports. The results also suggest that the impact of aggregate risk reporting levels was not observable until a distinction was made between bad and good news about risk. Specifically, we find that the German market tends to positively (negatively) price good (bad) news about risk by either improving (worsening) market liquidity through removing (creating) information asymmetries, or reducing (increasing) investor-perceived risk. Elsevier 2016-12 Article PeerReviewed Elshandidy, Tamer and Shrives, Philip J. (2016) Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany. International Journal of Accounting, 51 (4). pp. 464-486. ISSN 0020-7063 Aggregate risk reporting; Good and bad news about risk (tone); Investor-perceived risk; Market liquidity; Textual analys http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020706316301686 doi:10.1016/j.intacc.2016.10.001 doi:10.1016/j.intacc.2016.10.001
spellingShingle Aggregate risk reporting; Good and bad news about risk (tone); Investor-perceived risk; Market liquidity; Textual analys
Elshandidy, Tamer
Shrives, Philip J.
Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany
title Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany
title_full Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany
title_fullStr Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany
title_full_unstemmed Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany
title_short Environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from Germany
title_sort environmental incentives for and usefulness of textual risk reporting: evidence from germany
topic Aggregate risk reporting; Good and bad news about risk (tone); Investor-perceived risk; Market liquidity; Textual analys
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43019/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43019/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43019/