The practice of reporting manager-adjusted 'pro forma' earnings numbers in quarterly earnings press releases has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Prior research suggests that while some managers report these adjusted numbers to better reflect core earnings, others may use these...

We investigate two potential deterrents of aggressive pro forma reporting. First, the design of compensation contracts can encourage managers to adopt either a short- or a long-term focus. While it is difficult to observe whether compensation contracts are tied directly to pro forma earnings...

In recent years, many companies have emphasized adjusted-GAAP earnings numbers in their quarterly press releases. While managers use different names to describe these non-standard earnings metrics, the financial press frequently refers to them as "pro forma" earnings. Managers and other...

This study provides descriptive evidence on the controversial trend adopted by many firms in recent years of reporting earnings figures on a "pro forma" basis. Pro forma earnings exclude normal income statement items that managers deem to be nonrecurring or nonrepresentative of ongoing...

This study investigates whether market participants perceive pro forma earnings to be more informative and more persistent than standard GAAP operating income by analyzing a sample of 1,149 actual pro forma press releases issued between January 1998 and December 2000. We find that pro forma...

This study provides descriptive evidence on the controversial trend adopted by many firms in recent years of reporting earnings figures on a "pro forma" basis. Pro forma earnings exclude normal income statement items that managers deem to be nonrecurring or nonrepresentative of ongoing...

We contribute to the debate regarding the informativeness of pro forma earnings disclosures by providing evidence that a group of informed traders, short sellers, trade as if firms' voluntary non-GAAP earnings disclosures create information advantages they can exploit. While prior research...

We provide empirical evidence on the quality of street cash flow from operations (CFO) as an alternative financial performance summary measure. We focus our investigation on the quality of the items analysts exclude in their determination of street CFO. Based on a sample of 8,518 firm-year...

We provide archival evidence on how a particular type of supplementary information affects the credibility of management earnings forecasts. Managers often provide detailed forecasts of specific income statement line items to shed light on how they plan to achieve their bottom-line earnings...

This paper examines the association between pre-disclosure uncertainty and investor reliance on reported earnings. Our study is unique because it incorporates both context-specific and forecast-based measures of uncertainty. The analysis is based on data for 118 publicly-traded property and...