We model firms as competing for socially responsible consumers by linking the provision of a public good (environmentally friendly or socially responsible activities) to sales of their private goods. In many cases, too little of the public good is provided, but under certain conditions, competition leads to excessive provision. Further, there is generally a trade-off between more efficient provision of the private and the public good. Our results indicate that the level of private provision of the public good varies inversely with the competitiveness of the private-good market and that the types of public goods provided are biased toward those for which consumers have high participation value.

No abstract

Since 1995, managers of thousands of firms have voluntarily disclosed the expected date of their firm’s next quarterly earnings announcement to Thomson Financial Services Inc. These disclosures are approximately 500% more accurate than the simple time–series expected report dates used in prior accounting research. These disclosures are also informative. On average, managers who miss their own expected date eventually report earnings that fall about one penny per share below consensus forecasts for each day of delay. Investors respond by sending the price of late–announcing stocks down at the missed expected report date and continue to send them down as the reporting delay lengthens, consistent with our “day late, penny short” result. Despite this, we find that the market response at the time earnings are announced still depends on whether the announcement is early, on time, or late relative to the firm’s own expected report date.

We model firms as competing for socially responsible consumers by linking the provision of a public good (environmentally friendly or socially responsible activities) to sales of their private goods. In many cases, too little of the public good is provided, but under certain conditions, competition leads to excessive provision. Further, there is generally a trade‐off between more efficient provision of the private and the public good. Our results indicate that the level of private provision of the public good varies inversely with the competitiveness of the private‐good market and that the types of public goods provided are biased toward those for which consumers have high participation value.

No abstract