This article examines the accuracy and dispersion of analyst earnings forecasts from October 1993 to September 2013. The authors found an improvement in these forecast properties in the short run following various regulations in the early 2000s. Over the extended period, however, forecast...

In this paper, we argue that the observed optimism in analysts' forecasts of earnings is related to the costs and benefits to analysts of issuing optimistic forecasts — when the costs of issuing an optimistic forecast are high relative to the benefits of doing so, optimism will be less...