Deregulation and voluntary disclosure by the airlines: A case study

ABSTRACTThis study examines airlines’ voluntary disclosure behavior before and after deregulation. Before deregulation, did airlines avoid voluntary disclosures in order to reduce political costs? After deregulation, did airlines reporting higher earnings provide more voluntary disclosures in order to reduce their cost of capital? How do firms tradeoff between political costs and cost of capital? Airline deregulation offers a unique setting for this quasi-experiment because it is one of the largest deregulation events in the history of the United States, and because of the availability of a unique database of disclosure ratings during this time period. Prior to deregulation, we find little or no association between earnings and voluntary disclosures, suggesting that political costs subverted incentives for the most profitable airlines to make voluntary disclosures. After deregulation, we find a direct and positive relationship between airlines’ earnings and the volume of their voluntary disclosures.