Corporate governance and the early disclosure of systematic risk

Abstract Motivated by the need to understand firm characteristics associated with the disclosure of unexpected and unusual systematic risks, caused by events over which managers have little control, we examine the association between corporate governance and the early disclosure of such risks. We use the case of the global pandemic, COVID‐19 as an example of such risk. The results suggest that firms with weaker corporate governance, are more likely to disclose coronavirus risk early after controlling for firm performance. These findings are robust to alternative measures for the disclosure of coronavirus risk and to alternative model specifications.