Corporate transparency reduces information asymmetries between firms and capital markets, but increases the costs associated with information leakage to competitors. We explore how a country's information environment affects innovation, an activity characterized by high information asymmetries...

We study a broad sample of firms across 32 countries and find that strong shareholder protections and better access to stock market financing lead to substantially higher long-run rates of R&D investment, particularly in small firms, but are unimportant for fixed capital investment. Credit...

We develop a new measure of innovation using a textual analysis of analyst reports of S&P500 firms. Our text-based measure gives a useful description of innovation by firms with and without patenting and R&D. For non-patenting firms, the measure identifies innovative firms that adopt novel...