Do early and voluntary filers of financial information in XBRL format signal superior corporate governance and operating performance?

On March 16, 2005, the SEC issued Final Rule 33-8529 encouraging registrants to voluntarily file tagged financial statement information on the EDGAR reporting System using XBRL format. In this paper, we examine whether early and voluntary filers of financial information in XBRL format demonstrate superior corporate governance and operating performance relative to their non-adopting peers. We investigate performance, market, and structure-related firm variables. Our results suggest that corporate governance is significantly and positively associated with a firm's decision to be an early and voluntary filer of financial information in XBRL format. At the same time, firm performance factors including liquidity and firm size are also associated with the early and voluntary XBRL filing decision. Our findings should be particularly interesting for the SEC, as it considers the corporate governance and firm-performance related associations between certain registrants' early and voluntary response and its call for XBRL-based filings.