In this study, we investigate whether information demands made by common agents, specifically common institutional owners, drive firms to adopt a reporting framework that enhances the comparability and financial materiality of environmental, social, and governance information. Using a sample of 3659 unique US firms from 2015 to 2021, we collected data on the adoption of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board's reporting framework—identifying first movers, followers, and non‐adopting firms—and their levels of common institutional ownership. Our results are robust across changes in the levels of common institutional ownership, various combinations of fixed effects, and the application of an instrumental variable approach. Our findings support the idea that investors' demand drives comparability and financial materiality in sustainability reporting and that common ownership enhances such disclosure by alleviating the concern over the proprietary costs of revealing sensitive information. Our study offers new insights into patterns of intra‐industry disclosure behavior and a better understanding of how a group of increasingly significant market participants (i.e., common institutional owners) influences firms' commitment to investor‐focused disclosure.

中文翻译：

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共同所有权和以投资者为中心的披露：来自 ESG 财务重要性的证据


在这项研究中，我们调查了共同代理人，特别是共同机构所有者提出的信息需求是否促使公司采用一个报告框架，以增强环境、社会和治理信息的可比性和财务重要性。使用 2015 年至 2021 年期间 3659 家独特美国公司的样本，我们收集了有关采用可持续发展会计准则委员会报告框架的数据，确定了先行者、追随者和未采用的公司，以及它们的共同机构所有权水平。我们的结果在共同机构所有权水平的变化、固定效应的各种组合以及工具变量方法的应用方面是稳健的。我们的研究结果支持这样一种观点，即投资者的需求推动了可持续发展报告的可比性和财务重要性，而共同所有权通过减轻对披露敏感信息的专有成本的担忧来增强此类披露。我们的研究为行业内披露行为的模式提供了新的见解，并更好地了解一组日益重要的市场参与者（即共同的机构所有者）如何影响公司对以投资者为中心的披露的承诺。