No abstract

No abstract

Standalone corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports vary considerably in the content of information released due to their voluntary nature. In this study, we develop a disclosure score based on the tone, readability, length, and the numerical and horizon content of CSR report narratives, and examine the relationship between the CSR disclosure scores and analyst forecasts. We find that CSR reporters with high disclosure scores are associated with more accurate forecasts, whereas low score CSR reporters are not associated with more accurate forecasts than firms who do not issue CSR reports. The findings are robust to controlling for firm characteristics including CSR activity ratings and financial narratives. The findings are driven by experienced CSR reporters rather than first-time CSR reporters. Together, our findings suggest that the content of CSR reports helps to improve analyst forecast accuracy, and this relationship is more pronounced for CSR reports with more substantial content.

We use computer-intensive techniques to study the informational properties of forward-looking disclosures in the MD&A sections of 10-K filings made with the SEC. We find that firms make more forward-looking MD&A disclosures when their stock prices have lower informational efficiency, i.e., when their stock prices poorly reflect future earnings information. The greater levels of forward-looking MD&A disclosures help improve but are unable to completely mitigate the lower informational efficiency of stock prices for such firms. These findings are stronger for operations-related forward-looking disclosures, disclosures that are made prior to 2000, and disclosures made by loss firms.