In the paper, Capital Market Consequences of Managers’ Voluntary Disclosure Styles, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Accounting and Economics, I examine the capital market consequences of managers establishing an individual disclosure style. While both neoclassical economic and agency theories suggest that managers’ individual preferences should not have an effect on corporate outcomes, several recent academic studies find that managers have styles of their own that they carry from one firm to the other. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that manager credibility matters to financial analysts, who penalize CEOs and CFOs that fail to effectively manage expectations. To the extent that these manager-specific “styles” affect investors’ perceptions of the manager’s overall reputation and credibility, investors should take this into consideration when responding to managers’ disclosure decisions.

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