When Google went public with a dual‐class capital structure in which shares owned by the founders confer greater voting rights than shares issued to public investors, its cofounders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, promised to provide investors with high‐quality information about the company. Using the words of Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, another dual‐class firm, they promised shareholders, “We won’t ‘smooth’ quarterly or annual results: If earnings figures are lumpy when they reach headquarters, they will be lumpy when they reach you.” Page, Brin, and Buffett definitely understood the importance of quality information to their investors, especially in dual‐class structures. But do dual‐class companies really provide investors with credible financial information? Contrary to the assumption of agency theory that dual‐class firms are less transparent, we find empirically that these companies do provide credible information to their investors. Our results suggest that the quality of financial reports, as measured by their ability to predict change in future earnings, is higher for dual‐class companies than for their single‐class counterparts. These findings may be explained by the unique relations created in dual‐class firms in which the founders provide investors with higher‐quality information in exchange for superior voting rights. The article contributes to the heated debate about the transparency of dual‐class companies by providing policy makers with important insights on the quality of information provided by these companies. Our findings suggest that there is no need for stricter regulation with regard to disclosure of financial information by dual‐class firms.

中文翻译：

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双重企业提供的信息质量

当Google实行双重资本结构时，创始人拥有的股份比公开发行给公众的股份具有更大的投票权，其共同创始人拉里·佩奇（Larry Page）和谢尔盖·布林（Sergey Brin）承诺向投资者提供有关公司的高质量信息。他们用另一家两级公司伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的董事长兼首席执行官沃伦·巴菲特的话向股东们保证：“我们不会使季度或年度业绩保持“平稳”状态：如果当他们到达总部时，收益数字不佳，他们会当他们到达您时要显得矮胖。” 佩奇，布林和巴菲特无疑了解高质量信息对他们的投资者的重要性，尤其是在双重股权结构中。但是，一流公司真的能为投资者提供可靠的财务信息吗？与代理理论认为双重类别的公司透明度较低的假设相反，我们从经验上发现这些公司确实为投资者提供了可靠的信息。我们的结果表明，以两类公司的财务报告质量（通过其预测未来收益变化的能力来衡量）要比单类公司的质量更高。这些发现可以用在两类公司中建立的独特关系来解释，在这种关系中，创始人为投资者提供了更高质量的信息，以换取较高的投票权。本文通过为决策者提供关于此类公司提供的信息质量的重要见解，从而促进了有关双重类公司透明度的激烈辩论。我们的发现表明，对于双类别公司的财务信息披露，无需进行更严格的监管。