The state of the art in the analyst forecasting literature is that analyst earnings forecast ability is only firm-specific (Chen, Francis, and Jiang (2005); Chen and Jiang (2006)). This view is based on Park and Stice's (2000) finding of the absence of a “spillover” effect, i.e., investors...

Existing research documents that firms employing relatively high levels of stock option-based compensation more frequently report quarterly earnings that meet or exceed analysts' forecasts. This paper examines the roles of income-increasing accounting choices and management guidance to analysts...

Recent work in management accounting offers several novel insights into firms' cost behavior. This study explores whether financial analysts appropriately incorporate information on two types of cost behavior in predicting earnings - cost variability and cost stickiness. Since analysts'...

Managerial behavior differs considerably when managers report quarterly profits versus losses. When they report profits, managers seek to just meet or slightly beat analyst estimates. When they report losses, managers do not attempt to meet or slightly beat analyst estimates. Instead, managers...

This study explores insider trading as a function of differences between managers' and the market's assessment of company earning components - specifically operating cash flows and accruals. It extends prior research by more comprehensively studying earnings components. It also builds a...

Under the assumption that audit quality relates positively to unobservable financial reporting reliability, we investigate whether audit quality is associated with the predictability of accounting earnings by focusing on analyst earnings forecast properties. The evidence shows that analysts'...

We consider forecast guidance as a mechanism that managers use to avoid negative earnings surprises. Modeling forecast guidance using methods by Matsumoto, [Accounting Review 77 (3) (2002) 483-514] and Bartov et al. [Journal of Accounting and Economics 33 (2) (2002) 173-204], we show that...

This paper examines the role of earnings quality in the future performance of firms that marginally miss or beat analysts' forecasts. We focus primarily on two groups of firms: those that miss their forecast but appear not to have attempted to exceed it by managing earnings, and those that...

Our paper examines the association between components of analysts' earnings surprises and future earnings. We decompose the analysts' earnings surprise into its revenue, pretax margin, pretax income, and tax components. After controlling for current period earnings and discretionary accruals, we...

We examine whether firms with greater financial statement complexity are more likely to meet or beat analysts' earnings expectations. We proxy for financial statement complexity using the firm's industry and year adjusted accounting policy disclosure length. Firms with more complex financial...