This paper examines why private firms choose to be financially transparent or opaque by conducting a field experiment with more than 25,000 firms in Germany. We inform a randomly chosen set of firms about a disclosure option that allows eligible firms to restrict access to their otherwise publicly available financial statements. We also vary the messaging in subtle ways to induce experimental variation in the probability that firms take transacting (capital providers or customers and suppliers) versus non‐transacting stakeholders (competitors or general interest parties) into consideration when making their filing decision. Based on each firm's actual filing decision, we find that treated firms are 15% more likely to restrict access to their financial statements. This intention‐to‐treat effect is persistent and concentrated among firms that should derive lower net benefits from disclosure (smaller, more mature firms in less capital‐intensive industries). These findings indicate that informational constraints affect firms’ disclosure practice. Additionally, we show that the treatment effect is almost 40% larger for firms that have a higher, exogenously induced, probability of considering non‐transacting stakeholders when making their disclosure decision. By analyzing subsequent firm activity and complementary survey evidence, we also provide suggestive evidence that disclosure requirements put an undue burden on very small private firms.

中文翻译：

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私营企业的财务透明度：随机现场实验的证据


本文通过对德国 25,000 多家企业进行实地实验，探讨了私营企业选择财务透明或不透明的原因。我们向随机选择的一组公司通报披露选项，该选项允许符合条件的公司限制其公开的财务报表。我们还以微妙的方式改变信息传递，以引起公司在做出备案决定时考虑交易（资本提供者或客户和供应商）与非交易利益相关者（竞争对手或一般利益相关方）的概率的实验变化。根据每家公司的实际备案决定，我们发现接受处理的公司限制查阅其财务报表的可能性要高出 15%。这种意向治疗效应是持续存在的，并且集中在那些应该从披露中获得较低净收益的公司（资本密集度较低的行业中规模较小、更成熟的公司）。这些发现表明信息约束影响公司的披露实践。此外，我们发现，对于在做出披露决策时考虑非交易利益相关者的外生概率较高的公司，处理效果几乎要大 40%。通过分析随后的企业活动和补充调查证据，我们还提供了暗示性证据，表明披露要求给非常小的私营企业带来了不当的负担。