While previous research highlights the detrimental effects of myopic management through the manipulation of marketing and innovation budgets on firm performance, understanding of its antecedents is limited. Drawing on agency theory of the firm, the two studies propose that top management’s compensation horizon, institutional investors’ investor horizon and information asymmetry influence the practice of myopic management. Study one draws on an analysis of a panel of public firms’ shows that greater ownership by short-term institutional investors and greater emphasis on short term CEO/CMO compensation increase the odds that a firm will engage in myopic management of marketing and innovation investments. The financial impact of myopic practices is more nuanced than prior research suggests. While myopic management has a deleterious main effect on firm value; this effect is mitigated with increasing short-investment-horizon institutional investors. The second study exploits a SEC policy decision to conduct a quasi-natural experiment. The results suggest that reduction of information asymmetry causally determines lower levels of myopic marketing.