We explicitly model financial reporting discretion and earnings management in an investment setting where managers have incentives to behave myopically. We show that when managers are sufficiently, but not excessively, myopic, granting them some discretion over the mandatory financial reports can lead to better investment decisions. This finding contrasts with the conventional argument that financial reporting discretion facilitates earnings management and exacerbates managerial myopia, leading to inefficient investments. Costly earnings management, while offering managers some ex post protection against bad luck by decreasing the incidence of low financial reports, reduces the expected net benefit of high financial reports ex ante. Consequently, managers with negative private information find it too costly to mimic those with positive private information, facilitating separation of managers through efficient investment. Thus, curbing managerial myopia by removing or overly restricting earnings management may have the unintended consequence of impairing investment efficiency.

Audit firms have invested significantly in data analytics (DA). However, evidence shows that auditors are often reluctant to rely on DA. A major auditor concern is that inspectors will second-guess the audit evidence gathered using DA. Drawing on psychology research, we examine how the effect of inspection risk on auditors' reliance on DA is moderated by a fixed mindset (a belief that one's ability is fixed) versus a growth mindset (a belief that one's ability is malleable). In an experiment with Big 4 auditors as participants, we find that, relative to low inspection risk, high inspection risk reduces auditors' reliance on DA when auditors are prompted to adopt a fixed mindset but increases it when auditors are prompted to adopt a growth mindset. Our findings contribute to auditing literature on DA, inspection risk, and mindsets, and have implications for auditors, audit firms, and regulators.