British Accounting Review (1999) 31, 35–61 Article No. bare.1998.0082, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN CORPORATE CHARACTERISTICS AND DISCLOSURE LEVELS IN ANNUAL REPORTS: A META-ANALYSIS KAMRAN AHMED La Trobe University JOHN K. COURTIS City University of Hong Kong Accounting researchers have investigated associations between corporate characteristics and disclosures in corporate annual reports since 1961. Findings have consistently shown corporate size and listing status to be significantly associated with disclosure levels, while mixed results have been reported for leverage, profitability, and audit firm size. The purpose of the present paper is to integrate prior disclosure studies and to identify the underlying factors that moderate the apparent variation in results. A meta- analysis of 29 studies confirms significant and positive relationships between disclosure levels and corporate size, listing status and leverage. No significant association is found between corporate profitability or size of audit firm, with aggregate disclosure levels. This study also found that in addition to sampling error, the results are moderated by differences in disclosure index construction, differences in definition of the explanatory variables, and differences in research settings.  1999 Academic Press INTRODUCTION A considerable international literature has developed which investigates the association between corporate characteristics and disclosure levels in corporate annual reports (see, for example, Singhvi & Desai, 1971; Buzby, 1975; Firth, 1979; McNally et al., 1982; Cooke, 1989a, 1989b, 1992, 1993; Ahmed & Nicholls, 1994; Wallace et al., 1994, Wallace & Naser, 1995). The typical methodology employed is to construct a country-relevant disclosure index and to relate the quantity of informational items disclosed to selected corporate characteristics. Depending on the research objective and the The authors thank Stephen Keef, Haim Falk and Paul McGuinness for their comments and suggestions, as well as comments from two anonymous referees on an earlier draft. Please address all correspondence to: Dr. Kamran Ahmed, School of Business, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia. Received June 1996; resubmitted August 1998; accepted September 1998. 0890–8389/99/010035+27 $30.00  1999 Academic Press