What drives the increased informativeness of earnings announcements over time?

Landsman and Maydew (J Acc Res 40:797-808, 2002) document that the information content of earnings announcements has increased over the past three decades, and Francis et al. (Acc Rev, 77:515-546, 2002) conclude that expanded concurrent disclosures in firms' earnings announcements, especially the inclusion of detailed income statements, explain this increase. We posit and find that the temporal increase in the intensity of the market's reaction to Street earnings offers a competing explanation for the Landsman and Maydew finding. We also find that expanded concurrent disclosure of GAAP-based information contributes to the temporal increase in the information content of earnings announcements. However, unlike Francis et al., we find that the temporal increase in concurrent balance sheet and cash flow statement information dominates concurrent income statement information once we control for Street earnings. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.