We posit and find that the importance of analyst and forecast characteristics for analyst forecast accuracy varies with analysts' access to management's private information and with the precision of publicly available information. In particular, more experienced analysts and All-Star analysts do...

In a recent survey of analysts, 96% claim that returns are not very useful as earnings forecast model inputs. I find, though, that analysts actually do incorporate returns into their earnings forecasts, even if those returns have no underlying earnings information. This leads to forecast error,...

We show empirically that analysts who display more consistent forecast errors have greater ability to affect prices, and that this effect is larger than that of stated accuracy. These results lead to three implications. First, consistent analysts are less likely to be demoted and are more likely...

We study how career concerns influence banking analysts' forecasts. Banking analysts' first (last) earnings forecast of the year is relatively more optimistic (pessimistic) for a bank that could be their future employer. This pattern is not observed when the same analysts forecast earnings of...

We examine whether current-period stock prices influence analysts' earnings forecasts. Using an experiment with financial analysts, we find that analysts updating their earnings forecasts in response to a management earnings forecast provide different forecasts depending on the stock price...

When a firm issues a management forecast, analysts who have observed more forecasts from this firm since covering it (i.e., have more MF-experience) subsequently improve their own accuracy more and provide timelier earnings forecasts for other (non–issuing) firms in the same industry. We also...

This paper examines how the reporting model for a firm's operating assets affects analyst forecast accuracy. We contrast UK and US investment property firms having real estate as their primary operating asset, exploiting that UK (US) firms report these assets at fair value (historical cost). We...