Determinants of disclosure timing for financial statements of Brazilian public companies

Abstract

This work examines the determining factors affecting the timing of disclosures in quarterly and annual financial statements of Brazilian companies with shares that are listed on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange with shares that composed the São Paulo Stock Exchange Index (IBOVESPA) during the period 1/1997 - 2/2009. The determining factors were grouped into the following four dimensions: the complexity of operations, the characteristics of corporate governance, the level of information asymmetry, and the proprietary costs and statement content. With a final sample of 83 companies (1585 observations), the effects of 13 explanatory variables on the timing of disclosures in financial statements were examined using panel data methods; the variables examined included leverage control, company size, level of corporate governance, institutional ownership, financial statement consolidation, volatility, and losses. The main findings suggest that disclosing consolidated statements and/or statements that include losses has a positive effect on the timing of the disclosure, corroborating the hypothesis that disclosure timing is positively affected by greater complexity in operations and by the content of the statements (in this case, "bad news"). Control of the leverage variable, in turn, was shown to be negatively related to disclosure timing, suggesting that there may be a substitution relationship between these variables. Contrary to theoretical expectations, volatility displayed positive and statistically significant coefficients. However, upon the application of the instrumental variables method to obtain consistent estimates when there is simultaneity between volatility and disclosure timing, the volatility variable exhibited a negative coefficient and was statistically non-significant.