Proprietary Information Cost of Contracting with the Government

作者：Jiapeng He, Kevin K. Li, Ningzhong Li, Weining Zhang · 发表于：The Accounting Review · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.2308/tar-2022-0351 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Political Influence and Corporate Strategies、Public Procurement and Policy、Corporate Taxation and Avoidance

ABSTRACT We argue that contracting with the federal government involves significant proprietary information cost due to regulations requiring contractors to provide proprietary information, which may become available to outsiders via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. We provide evidence by showing that firms become more willing to bid for government contracts after a recent Supreme Court ruling on FOIA (Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media) that improved information protection for contractors and that this effect strengthens when the contracts entail higher proprietary information cost for contractors. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: K4; M4.