ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the extent to which differences in disclosure behaviour within the sample of companies can be associated with company characteristics. It demonstrates that there is in fact a certain consistency in the disclosure behaviour of individual companies: without consistency, there would be no point in trying to investigate systematic differences among companies by relating essentially fixed company characteristics to disclosure. The chapter introduces various measures that can be used to summarize disclosure practices over longer periods of time. Consistent disclosure demonstrates the existence of at least a minimum degree of overall consistency, which is important in an investigation of the relation between fixed company characteristics and disclosure as measured by an all-period statistic. The prediction of the disclosure of a particular company is improved if one knows the disclosure of the companies to which it is linked by multiple board memberships.
