The Informational Effects of Tightening Oil and Gas Disclosure Rules

Marc Badia, Miguel Duro, Bjørn N. Jørgensen*, Gaizka Ormazabal, Hans B. Christensen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

We exploit two regulatory shocks to examine the informational effects of tightening preexisting mandatory disclosure rules. Canadian National Instrument 51-101 in 2003 and the U.S. rule “Mod-ernization of Oil and Gas Reporting” in 2009 introduced quasi-identical amendments which effec-tively tightened the rules governing oil and gas reserve disclosures in both countries. We document significant changes in firms’ reporting outcomes when the new regulations are intro-duced. We also find that the reserve disclosures filed under the new regulations are more closely associated with stock price changes and with decreases in bid-ask spreads. Our findings are robust to controlling for other confounding factors such as time trends, other information disclosed simul-taneously, financial reporting incentives, mispricing, and monitoring efforts.
Original languageEnglish
JournalContemporary Accounting Research
Volume37
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)1720–1755
Number of pages36
ISSN0823-9150
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2020
Externally publishedYes

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