Risk disclosures and firm value: the role of governance in an emerging market

Purpose - The objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of risk disclosures on firm value. We further investigate whether effective governance moderates the relation between risk disclosures and firm value. Design/methodology/approach - We use a sample of the top 200 Indian listed firms on NSE from 2013 to 2018. The generalised method of moments (GMM) along with the ordinary least square (OLS) is used to investigate our research problem. Further, we use the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) technique and the Heckman selection model for correcting selection bias in the robustness section. Findings - We find that higher risk disclosures result in lower firm value. Besides, we show that better governance minimizes the negative impact of risk disclosures on firm value. This finding encourages firms to have a good governance mechanism to mitigate the adverse effects of risk disclosures in public. Originality/value - The main contribution of our paper is to examine the moderating effect of governance between risk disclosures in the annual report and firm value (market-based and accounting-based) in the context of an emerging economy. Moreover, the paper highlights the potential moderating effect of independent directors and resourceful boards on the risk disclosures and firm value in the Indian context.