Pressure from institutional money managers to generate profits in the short run is often blamed for corporate myopia. Theoretical research suggests that money managers’ shortterm focus stems from their career concerns and greater fund transparency can amplify these concerns. Using a difference-in-differences design around a regulatory shock that increased the transparency of fund managers’ portfolio choices, we examine whether increased transparency encourages myopic corporate investment behavior. We find that corporate innovation declines following the regulatory shock. Moreover, evidence from mutual fund trading behavior corroborates that the increased short-term focus of money managers drives the results.

Pressure from institutional money managers to generate profits in the short run is often blamed for corporate myopia. Theoretical research suggests that money managers' short term focus stems from their career concerns and greater fund transparency can amplify these concerns. Using a difference-in-differences design around a regulatory shock that increased transparency about fund managers' portfolio choices, we examine whether increased transparency encourages myopic corporate investment behavior. We find that corporate innovation declines following the regulatory shock. Moreover, evidence from mutual fund trading behavior corroborates that these results are driven by increased short-term focus of money managers.

Using the transition of U.S. firms from annual reporting to semi-annual reporting and then to quarterly reporting over the period 1950–1970, we provide evidence on the effects of increased reporting frequency on firms' investment decisions. Estimates from difference-in-differences specifications indicate that increased reporting frequency is associated with an economically large decline in investments. Additional analyses reveal that the decline in investments is most consistent with frequent financial reporting inducing myopic management behavior. Our evidence informs the recent controversial debate about eliminating quarterly reporting for U.S. corporations.