Using hand-collected data on analyst locations, we study how geographic proximity affects analyst coverage decisions for U.S. firms that went public during 1996-2009, along with the impact of local coverage on firm visibility. Analysts are 80% more likely to cover local firms than non-local...

In this paper, we discuss analysts, their roles in capital markets, regulation shocks that affected analysts in recent years, and what we can learn about these issues from academic research. We build upon well-discussed topics such as analysts' conflicts of interest, their tendency towards...