Non-GAAP Reporting and Investor Attention: Are Investors Misled by Exclusions of Recurring Expenses from Non-GAAP Earnings before Restatement Announcements?

Non-GAAP reporting is under debate as managers may opportunistically inflate non-GAAP earnings. By separating firms into groups based on exclusions of recurring expenses before material restatements occur this paper investigates whether market participants are misled based on ex-ante non-GAAP reporting. The results show a decline in cumulative abnormal returns (–11.8% aggressive non-GAAP Reporting vs. –2.7% non-aggressive non-GAAP reporting), reduction in overvaluation (–22.18% vs. no decline) and losses in the earnings response coefficient (–51.8% vs. no significant decline) for firms with prior aggressive non-GAAP reporting. Further, we document that investors are less responsive to aggressively reported non-GAAP earnings ex-post, indicating that increased attention enhances investor’s ability to see through the quality of non-GAAP exclusions.