In contrast to the disappearing dividends view, we predict that variability in dividend payments increases investor demand for dividend information and analysts respond to this demand by producing informative dividend forecasts. We examine dividend payers from 16 countries spanning 2000–2013...

We document that analysts cater to short-term investors by issuing optimistic target prices. Catering dominates among analysts at brokers without an investment banking arm as they face lower reputational cost. The market does not see through the analyst catering activity and their forecasts lead...

We propose that analysts are more likely to disaggregate earnings-per-share (EPS) forecasts into revenue and expense estimates when quality of firm financial reporting is low. The disaggregation happens because, compared to EPS forecast accuracy, revenue forecast accuracy is less adversely...