Corporate governance and the information environment: Evidence from state antitakeover laws

► We examine the relation between corporate governance and firms' information environments. ► We use the passage of state antitakeover laws in the U.S. as a source of exogenous variation in a governance mechanism. ► Our results suggest that information asymmetry and private information gathering decreased. ► We find that financial statement informativeness increased following the passage of the antitakeover laws. ► The increased level of financial statement informativeness is attributable to firms that are most likely to access equity markets.