This paper investigates the relative influences of industrial and country factors in international stock returns. Until very recently, academic research has consistently found that country factors dominate industrial factors. This result is in contradiction with practitioners beliefs. This paper...

European financial research departments have been re-organized over the last decade. Formerly structured along country lines, they have been refocused towards industry-based structures. We investigate whether this evolution impacted the quality of financial analysts' earnings forecasts....

Brokerage houses usually organize their research activities by country or economic sector. We evaluate which research structure provides most value to investors. To do so, we study the relative information content of recommendations issued by country-specialized analysts and sector-specialized...