We study the influence of bounded rationality on companies’ disclosure to investors in new industries. Using a historical example of a new industry, we document that several companies initially withheld their earnings, despite external capital needs and investor information demands. However, almost all these companies started disclosing shortly thereafter. Interpreted through the lens of a disclosure model featuring level-k thinking, these patterns suggest that limited strategic thinking of some companies contributed to the initial failure to disclose, while feedback and learning over time contributed to the quick convergence to an equilibrium of (almost) full disclosure in the new industry. (JEL D82, D83, D91, L92, M41, N21)

中文翻译：

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学习披露：1890 年代有轨电车行业的披露动态

我们研究了有限理性对公司向新行业投资者披露的影响。使用一个新行业的历史示例，我们记录了几家公司最初不顾外部资本需求和投资者信息需求而扣留了他们的收益。然而，几乎所有这些公司都在此后不久开始披露。通过以 k 级思维为特征的披露模型进行解释，这些模式表明，一些公司有限的战略思维导致了最初的披露失败，而随着时间的推移，反馈和学习有助于在新行业中迅速收敛到（几乎）完全披露的平衡。（JEL D82、D83、D91、L92、M41、N21）