This paper examines the cross-sectional implications of the inflation illusion
hypothesis for the post-earnings-announcement drift. The inflation illusion
hypothesis suggests that stock market investors fail to incorporate inflation
in forecasting future earnings growth rates, and this causes firms whose earnings
growths are positively (negatively) related to inflation to be undervalued
(overvalued). We argue and show that the sensitivity of earnings growth to inflation
varies monotonically across stocks sorted on standardized unexpected
earnings (SUE) and, consistent with the inflation illusion hypothesis, show
that lagged inflation predicts future earnings growth, abnormal returns, and
earnings announcement returns of SUE-sorted stocks. Interestingly, controlling
for the return predictive ability of inflation weakens the ability of lagged
SUE to predict future returns of SUE-sorted stocks.