Evidence on the role of banks in borrowers' disclosure.

摘要

This dissertation examines whether banks influence their borrowers' disclosure choices in order to maintain or enhance their information advantage relative to competing capital providers. Banks that actively monitor borrowers acquire private information that gives them an information advantage relative to competing potential lender banks and dispersed bondholders and shareholders, who are relatively more reliant on public disclosures to obtain information about the firm. Banks benefit from this information advantage and, therefore, prefer less public dissemination of information that is available to them privately. I test this theory by examining changes in firms' disclosures choices around covenant violations, which shift the control rights to creditors, who can then use their enhanced bargaining power to impose their preferences on various firm policies, including disclosure policies. Consistent with this theory, I find that managers reduce the extent to which they publicly disclose their private information after covenant violations.