We investigate improvements of the information environment and cost of debt implications. Capturing choices of accounting standards, auditor quality, and board size reflecting improvements of the information environment we find that the need of financing triggers an improvement, the most common actions are to switch to more qualified accountants and add board members. Improvements of the environment result in a reduction of cost of debt. Tests show that increasing audit quality decrease cost of debt. This is relevant to the discussion on accounting regulation for private firms among U.S. and European policy-makers showing that stakeholders do not demand valuation-oriented accounting.