Mike Guttentag has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming Columbia Business Law Review). Here is the abstract:

Mandatory disclosure is a central feature of securities regulation in the United States, yet there is little agreement regarding precisely how the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) should determine what public companies are required to disclose. The current debate about whether the SEC should require the disclosure of political spending by public companies is but one example of this lack of consensus.

In this Article I first answer the more general question of how to evaluate any proposed public company mandatory disclosure requirement. I then apply this new evaluation method to the specific question of whether public companies should be required to disclose political spending. This analysis shows, based, in part, on previously unpublished empirical findings, that the evidence does not support requiring public companies to disclose political spending.

Mike’s a very smart guy and I’m looking forward to reading this!