The Information-Leveling Role of Management Forecast Consistency in Facilitating Investment Efficiency

This study examines whether voluntary disclosure enhances investment efficiency through its information-leveling role in the capital markets. We argue that investment efficiency improves with the quality of managers’ past earnings forecasts because past forecast quality alleviates information frictions that inhibit firm access to investment capital. Our empirical results are consistent with this argument. To start, we document a baseline positive association between management forecast consistency and investment efficiency. Building on this result, we find that the consistency effect strengthens when cross-sectional attributes indicate higher information frictions and when industry-wide accounting quality is negatively shocked. In addition, we find that consistency effects are stronger for financially constrained firms and that consistency is associated with lower bid-ask spreads and positive changes in equity issuance. Overall, we show that building a reputation for high-quality management earnings forecasts can help firms overcome information frictions that contribute to suboptimal investment.