Will Mandatory Disclosure Deregulation Leads To More Voluntary Disclosure?

Taking 549 Emerging Growth Companies which went public in America since the issue of Jumpstart Our Business Startups(JOBS)Act to December 31 st,2015 as the sample,this paper investigates how EGC enterprises adopt the information disclosure exemption terms,and the relation of such adoption with subsequent voluntary disclosures behaviors.Using descriptive statistics and regression analysis method,this paper draws the following conclusions:(1)Most companies choose to take advantage of the reduced regulatory and reporting requirements in the JOBS Act,and each company utilizes 4.34 exemption clauses on average;(2)As time goes on,EGC enterprises are more willing to make voluntary disclosure.The items of 8-K form voluntarily disclosed by each company each year increased from 6.71 in 2012 to 26.54 in 2015;(3)There is remarkable positive correlativity between the amount of exemption clauses that EGC enterprises adopted during IPO and the quantity of subsequent voluntary disclosure information;(4)Some certain exemption clauses("extended transition periods available under the JOBS Act for complying with new or revised accounting standards" and "reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation")are significantly positively related to subsequent voluntary disclosure;(5)The use of exemption disclosure clauses only affects certain voluntary disclosure items,including "Registrant's Business and Operations","Financial Information",and "Financial Statements and Exhibits".Since the capital market reformation is getting under way with great effort in China,especially after the draft of Amendments to the Law of Security being formulated in April 20 th,2015,information disclosure duties in issuing securities and afterwards were comprehensively regulated.The requirements of disclose information timely,fairly and transparently were made,while a system of information disclosure exemption and voluntary disclosure was set up.Furthermore,since Registered System is being implementing in our country,this paper provides several worthy suggestions on how to establish and improve the Registered System,and whether we should release similar information disclosure exemption policies aiming at medium and small sized firms in order to reduce their burdens when go public.This paper also offers some prediction to the impact of releasing information disclosure exemption policies on voluntary disclosures.Therefore,the results of this paper have a certain reference value.