The Impact Of Capital Market Opening On Voluntary Information Disclosure

The "14th Five-Year Plan" emphasizes shifting the focus towards high-quality economic development,improving two-way opening up,and "Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect" and "Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect" as models of two-way opening.The inclusion of A-shares in the MSCI index is another significant event that represents China’s further expansion of its openness to the world.Previous research has mainly focused on the economic consequences of market-opening events,while there has been relatively little research on the relationship between A-share inclusion in the MSCI index and corporate information disclosure.The inclusion of A-shares in the MSCI index can promote the effectiveness of China’s capital market and encourage companies to disclose more information.Timely and high-quality information disclosure is crucial for sustainable business development,but violations are still common in China’s A-share market,damaging the investment environment and investor interests.Therefore,this study explores the relationship between A-share inclusion in the MSCI index and voluntary information disclosure by enterprises,which has important practical significance under the current economic situation where financial services drive entity economy development under the new pattern of openness-led development.This article takes the inclusion of A-shares in the MSCI index as a representative event of capital market opening,creating a quasi-natural experiment platform by naturally dividing all stocks into treatment and control groups.Using listed company data from 2016 to 2019 in the A-share market,this study employs a difference-indifferences(DID)model to empirically analyze the impact of A-share inclusion in the MSCI index on voluntary information disclosure by enterprises under the background of capital market openness and further explore the specific pathways through which capital market openness affects voluntary information disclosure by enterprises.After empirical analysis,this study draws the following conclusions: Firstly,the inclusion of A-shares in the MSCI index significantly improves voluntary information disclosure by enterprises.This result remains robust after conducting parallel trend tests,propensity score matching estimates,and endogeneity tests with a lag of one period after "MSCI inclusion." Secondly,the results of the mediation analysis indicate that the inclusion of A-shares in the MSCI index improves the voluntary information disclosure levels of enterprises by increasing analyst attention.These findings provide empirical evidence for the impact of A-share inclusion in the MSCI index on voluntary information disclosure by enterprises,enrich the research on the micro-level effects of capital market openness,and also provide practical experience for improving the internal and external information disclosure systems of enterprises,promoting two-way connectivity of capital markets,and the global development of emerging capital markets.