The Effect of Investor Inattention on Non-GAAP Disclosure

ABSTRACT We examine whether investor inattention influences managers’ non-GAAP earnings disclosures. Employing a measure that captures quasi-exogenous variation in institutional investor inattention, we find that managers are more likely to provide non-GAAP disclosures when inattention is high. Moreover, inattention is positively associated with the aggressiveness of non-GAAP disclosures, which suggests managers present better non-GAAP performance and lower quality exclusions to inattentive investors. Taken together, our findings suggest that managers respond opportunistically to inattentive institutions by disclosing aggressive non-GAAP earnings metrics and provide support for Hirshleifer and Teoh's (2003) theoretical model examining the relation between inattention and non-GAAP disclosure. We extend the literature examining how investor inattention affects when firms issue disclosures by examining whether it also changes what firms voluntarily disclose. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: M40; M41; G20; G23.