We evaluate the influence of measurement error in analysts' forecasts on the accuracy of implied cost of capital estimates from various implementations of the ‘implied cost of capital' approach, and develop corrections for the measurement error. We document predictable error in the implied...

We first examine whether analysts with certain characteristics that prior research has identified are related to superior forecasting ability systematically time their forecast revisions later in the fiscal quarter. We then examine whether this superior ability persists after controlling for...

This paper provides evidence that tournaments motivate analysts to behave boldly and that tournament incentives can be perverse. Controlling for forecast accuracy, analysts making bold forecasts are more likely to win the tournaments measured by moving to prestigious brokerages or being named as...

We examine the impact of financial restatements on managers' subsequent earnings forecasts. We argue that restatements create conflicting incentives. One incentive is to repair manager reputations as information providers by providing more and better guidance via earnings forecasts. The opposing...

This study investigates how investors' reactions to one firm's earnings preannouncements are affected by the preannouncements of a peer firm. Our experimental results suggest that when two peer firms sequentially preannounce positive earnings news, investors' assessments of the target firm's...

We examine the effect of litigation risk on management's decision to issue earnings forecasts. We use a new ex ante measure of litigation risk, namely, the Directors and Officers liability insurance premium. This measure bypasses significant problems associated with the estimation of ex ante...

Value relevance studies, which examine the relationship between accounting numbers and equity valuation, use market values sampled a number of months after the publication of annual financial reports. Although it stems from the researchers' belief that accounting information needs to be made...

This study examines the predictive power of comprehensive income and its individual components within the homogenous institutional setting of German IFRS firms. The results could be relevant for the standard setters IASB and FASB and their joint project “Financial Statement Presentation”. We...

We re-examine the widely held belief that analysts' earnings per share (EPS) forecasts are superior to random walk (RW) time-series forecasts. We investigate whether analysts' annual EPS forecasts are superior, and if so, under what conditions. Simple RW EPS forecasts are more accurate than...

This study examines the effect of the readability of firm written communication on the behavior of sell-side financial analysts. Using a measure of the readability of corporate 10-K filings, we document that analyst following, the amount of effort incurred to generate their reports, and the...