The SEC reviews firm filings and issues comment letters on those filings. These comment letters play an important role in the assessment of firm value. These activities are seasonally compressed because over 70 percent of registrants have a December fiscal year‐end. Research in other settings finds that busyness leads to negative outcomes. We examine how busyness impacts the frequency, scope, and timeliness of comment letters. We find that the SEC issues fewer comment letters when busy, focuses its limited resources on the most severe cases of disclosure noncompliance, and extends the amount of time between receiving a firm's filing and issuing a comment letter. Despite this, we find no evidence that the SEC misses more serious compliance issues when busy. Our results have implications for policymakers responsible for allocating resources to the SEC.
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the extent to which federal acquisitions motivate private-sector partner firms’ investment in innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
Archival, Empirical.
Findings
This study finds that federal acquisitions are positively associated with contractors’ R&D spending but that the intensity of R&D spending is indistinguishable between firms’ government and private sectors (non-government) contracts. This study also develops a novel measure of the intensity of contractor R&D spending on public sector relative to private-sector clients and assesses construct validity of the measure.
Research limitations/implications
Cultivating innovation is an explicit goal of federal procurement. Innovation is critical to addressing the nation’s collective problems. The results should be of interest to scholars and practitioners, particularly acquisition personnel, one of whose responsibilities is to efficiently steward tax revenues to the most productive (contracting) use.
Originality/value
This study is descriptive in nature and helps to illuminate the extent and conditions under which federal acquisition activity motivates investment in innovation by private-sector partners. These results speak to how effectively government contracting motivates private-sector innovation, which clearly has implications for fiscal stewardship. Additionally, private-sector innovation affects stock price formation. Collectively, these results imply that the extent to which acquisitions motivate innovation has material implications on our country’s fiscal health.
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