The 2010 Dodd-Frank law remade Wall Street, but not always for the better. Consider the new disclosure obligations unrelated to the financial crisis that the legislation has mandated.

Publicly held companies must now report the ratio of their CEOs’ pay to that of their “average” worker’s. They also have to state whether there are any “blood diamonds” in their supply chains. Last month the SEC reissued rules under Dodd-Frank requiring firms such as oil drillers and coal miners to disclose any payments made to governments to secure leases.

This information isn’t cheap: The Center for Capital Markets estimated in 2014 that the pay-ratio disclosure alone would cost firms 3.6 million hours and $711 million annually. Whether the benefits justify the costs is a difficult question, but there is reason to doubt that shareholders would pay for this data on their own accord. The SEC may claim to know what shareholders want, but it can do little more than guess.

A better way to find the optimal level of disclosure would be to create a market for corporate data to be bought and sold.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal