Voluntary Disclosure of Disaggregated Earnings Information

This paper provides an equilibrium analysis of a setting in which a manager is required to disclose GAAP earnings, but has discretion over the provision of information about earnings components that are disaggregated according to their persistence or value relevance. We find that the manager is more likely to disclose disaggregated earnings information when GAAP earnings fall. We derive intuitive comparative static results concerning the impacts of firm characteristics on the manager's equilibrium disclosure choice. We also discuss how the paper's main results are linked to empirical findings on pro forma earnings disclosures.