| المستخلص: |
Transparency and disclosure represent one of the pillar of corporate governance. Numerous scandals have occurred worldwide due to lack or improper corporate disclosures. Disclosure is aimed at providing a clear view to stakeholders about the business’s long-term sustainability and reducing information asymmetry and agency conflicts between managers and investors. Business organizations have over the years reported financial and non-financial information to the shareholders and the general public. The first objective of this research is to study the impact of firm specific characteristics (the firm size, firm profitability level, the implementation of governance mechanisms, listing in the foreign stock exchanges, the financial leverage and the type of industry) on corporate disclosure levels among the listed Egyptian companies, and its second objective is to study the effects of corporate disclosure levels on the information content (measured through the stock prices, the variation in trading volume, and the variation in trading value) in the Egyptian Stock Exchange . The research population is represented in all companies registered at 2010 in Egyptian stock market which totaled 365 listed companies while the research sample represents 99 listed companies which forms 27.1% of the total population. The research results suggest that firm size, governance mechanisms, listing in foreign exchanges and financial leverage were significantly and positively associated with the level of disclosure. While an inverse significant relationship was found between liquidity ratio and disclosure levels. However, both the industry type and firm profitability variables were found to be insignificant in explaining the variation of disclosure level. Furthermore, the researcher found that there is no significant impact of disclosure level on variation in stock prices, this may be because the bid/ ask pricing in the Egyptian Stock Exchange may not rely on analyzing the published data. However, there is a significant impact of disclosure level on the variation in trading volume and value. This may be because investors wish to gain profits after announcement and publishing of financial statements. The study recommends that scientific and legal bodies should highly encourage companies listed in the Egyptian Stock Exchange to disclose the largest financial and non-financial information. Enforcement of governance requirements is necessary, And also to set out a minimum requirements that must be disclosed which will accordingly increase the importance of information disclosed to investors.
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