To date, there is only meager research evidence on the usefulness of
mandatory annual report risk disclosures to investors. Although it has
been argued that corporate disclosure decreases information asymmetry
between management and shareholders, we do not know whether investors
benefit from high-quality risk reporting in a highly regulated risk
disclosure environment. In this paper, we performed association tests to
examine whether the quality of firms’ mandatory risk disclosures relate
to information asymmetry in the Finnish stock markets. In addition, we
analyzed whether the usefulness of risk disclosures depends on
contingency factors such as firm riskiness, investor interest, and
market condition. We demonstrate that the quality of risk disclosure has
a direct negative influence on information asymmetry. We also document
that risk disclosures are more useful if they are provided by small
firms, high tech firms, and firms with low analyst coverage. We also
found that momentum in stock markets affects the relevance of firms’
risk reports.