Because analysts strategically allocate more effort to portfolio firms that are relatively more important for their careers, a firm's information environment is impacted by other firms covered by its analysts. Controlling for analyst and firm characteristics, an analyst makes more accurate,...

Existing studies identify analyst skills by ex post evaluation of their outputs (forecasts and recommendations), which are contaminated by luck and noise. Using the premises that questions reveal interest and that interest and practice lead to skill, we construct an ex ante analyst...