The Influence of Information Disclosure Transparency and Transparency Rankings on Earnings Informativeness and Future Earnings

This study examines how firm disclosure activity affects the relationship between annual stock returns and changes in annual earnings. This study uses the Taiwanese Information Disclosure and Transparency Ranking System (IDTRS) as a proxy for disclosure activity, and samples were collected from Taiwanese publicly traded firms between 2005 and 2010. Our results show that the informativeness of accounting earnings is stronger for firms ranking higher in transparency than for other firms. In addition, we find that changes in disclosure activity are incrementally positively related to changes in current earnings for returns, and that disclosure activity is significantly and positively associated with firms' future performance, though changes in disclosure activity is not. Last, the results show that disclosure activity is positively and significantly associated with the comparability of firms' future financial reports.