Discretionary-based disclosure: evidence from the Brazilian market

the primary objective of this paper is to identify the factors that explain brazilian companies’ level of voluntary disclosure. underpinning this work is the discretionary-based disclosure theory. the sample is composed of the top 100 largest non-financial companies listed in the bolsa de valores de s？o paulo (brazilian securities, commodities, and futures exchange - bovespa). information was gathered from financial statements for the years ending in 2006, 2007, and 2008, with the use of content analysis. a disclosure framework based on 27 studies from these years was created, with a total of 92 voluntary items divided into two dimensions: economic (43) and socio-environmental (49). based on the existing literature, a total of 12 hypotheses were elaborated and tested using a panel data approach. results evidence that: (a) sector and origin of control are statistically significant in all three models tested: economic, socio-environmental, and total; (b) ‘profitability’ is relevant in the economic model and in the total model; (c) tobin’s q is relevant in the socio-environmental model and in the total disclosure model; (d) leverage and auditing firm are only relevant in the economic disclosure model; (e) size, governance, stock issuing, growth opportunities and concentration of control are not statistically significant in any of the three models.