Information disclosure is an essential component of regulation in financial markets. In this article, we provide a cohesive analytical framework to review certain key channels through which disclosure in financial markets affects market quality, information production, efficiency of real investment decisions, and traders’ welfare. We use our framework to address four main aspects. First, we demonstrate the conventional wisdom that disclosure improves market quality in an economy with exogenous information. Second, we illustrate that disclosure can crowd out the production of private information and that its overall market-quality implications are subtle and depend on the specification of information-acquisition technology. Third, we review how disclosure affects the efficiency of real investment decisions when financial markets are not just a side show, as real decision makers can learn information from them to guide their decisions. Last, we discuss how disclosure in financial markets affects investors’ welfare through changing trading opportunities and through beauty-contest motives. Overall, our review suggests that information disclosure is an important factor for understanding the functioning of financial markets and that there are several trade-offs that should be considered in determining its optimal level.

中文翻译：

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金融市场信息披露

信息披露是金融市场监管的重要组成部分。在本文中，我们提供了一个有凝聚力的分析框架，以审查金融市场披露影响市场质量、信息生产、实际投资决策效率和交易者福利的某些关键渠道。我们使用我们的框架来解决四个主要方面。首先，我们证明了在具有外生信息的经济体中披露可以提高市场质量的传统智慧。其次，我们说明披露可以挤出私人信息的生产，并且它对市场质量的整体影响是微妙的，并且取决于信息获取技术的规范。第三，我们回顾了当金融市场不只是一场戏时披露如何影响实际投资决策的效率，因为真正的决策者可以从他们那里学习信息来指导他们的决策。最后，我们讨论了金融市场的信息披露如何通过不断变化的交易机会和选美动机影响投资者的福利。总体而言，我们的审查表明，信息披露是理解金融市场运作的一个重要因素，在确定其最佳水平时应考虑几个权衡。