Voluntary disclosure of cash flow statements and segment data in Germany

  • Discretionary disclosure theory suggests that firms' incentives to provide proprietary versus nonproprietary information differ markedly. To test this conjecture, the paper investigates the incentives of German firms to voluntarily disclose business segment reports and cash flow statements in their annual financial reports. While the former is likely to reveal proprietary information to competitors, the latter is less proprietary in nature. Using these proxies for proprietary and non-proprietary disclosures, respectively, I find that the determinants or at least their relative magnitudes differ in a way consistent with the proprietary cost hypothesis. That is, cash flow statement disclosures appear to be governed primarily by capital-market considerations, whereas segment disclosures are more strongly associated with proxies for product-market and proprietary-cost considerations.

Download full text files

Export metadata

Metadaten
Author:Christian LeuzORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-553471
URL:https://www.econbiz.de/archiv/f/uf/finanzierung/segment_data.pdf
ISSN:1434-3401
Parent Title (German):Universität Frankfurt am Main. Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften: [Working paper series / Finance and accounting] Working paper series, Finance & Accounting ; No. 21
Series (Serial Number):Working paper series / Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften : Finance & Accounting (21)
Place of publication:Frankfurt am Main
Document Type:Working Paper
Language:English
Year of Completion:1999
Year of first Publication:1999
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2020/08/30
Tag:business segment reports; cash flow statements; proprietary costs; voluntary disclosure
Issue:7. March 1999
Page Number:49
HeBIS-PPN:470252502
Institutes:Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht