Re-examining the Effects of Regulation Fair Disclosure Using Foreign Listed Firms to Control for Concurrent Shocks

We re-examine the effects of Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) using ADRs (who are exempt from Reg FD) to control for confounding events which affected all traded firms. Tests based on public information metrics (returns volatility, informational efficiency and trading volume) and on analyst information metrics (forecast dispersion and accuracy) suggest that Reg FD did not uniquely affect the US information environment. However, analyst report informativeness declined for US firms relative to ADR firms, providing evidence consistent with Reg FD achieving one of its objectives -reducing private information flows to analysts.