We examine how financial disclosure policy affects a firm manager's strategy to innovate within a two-period bandit problem featuring two production methods: an old method with a known probability of success, and a new method with an unknown probability. Exploring the new method in the first period provides the manager with decision-useful information for the second period, thus creating a real option that is unavailable under exploiting the old known production method. Voluntary disclosure of the firm's financial performance provides the manager with another option to potentially conceal initial failure from the market. The interaction of these two options determines the manager's incentive to explore. In equilibrium, a myopic manager who cares about the interim market price may over- or under-explore compared to the optimal exploration strategy that maximizes firm value. Our analysis shows that firms operating in an environment with voluntary disclosure early in the trial stage and mandated requirement later are most motivated to explore, while firms subject to early mandated disclosure and late voluntary disclosure are least likely to do so. We also provide empirical predictions about the link between the disclosure environment and the intensity and efficiency of corporate innovation.

中文翻译：

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创新和财务披露

我们研究财务披露政策如何影响公司经理在两期强盗问题中的创新策略，该问题具有两种生产方法：成功概率已知的旧方法和概率未知的新方法。在第一阶段探索新方法为管理者提供了第二阶段的决策有用信息，从而创建了在利用旧的已知生产方法时无法获得的实物期权。自愿披露公司的财务业绩为管理者提供了另一种可能向市场隐瞒最初失败的选择。这两个选项的相互作用决定了管理者探索的动力。在均衡状态下，与最大化公司价值的最优探索策略相比，关心临时市场价格的短视管理者可能会过度或探索不足。我们的分析表明，在试验阶段早期自愿披露、后期强制要求的环境中运营的公司最有动力进行探索，而早期强制披露和后期自愿披露的公司最不可能这样做。我们还提供了关于披露环境与企业创新强度和效率之间联系的实证预测。