The COVID-19 pandemic disrupts capital markets and confuses decision makers. This event represents an opportunity to better understand how financial analysts forecast earnings. We focus on forecasts for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the United States, since REITs are relatively...

This paper provides a theory of earnings quality metrics, explaining what they capture and how they are related with each other. We develop a simple economy in which a manager has market price, earnings, and smoothing incentives and can bias earnings reports. This economy provides a framework...

This paper examines how the characteristics of accounting systems and management incentives interact and collectively determine financial reporting quality. We develop a rational expectations equilibrium model that features a steady-state firm with investments, financial and non-financial...

This paper examines how commonly used earnings quality measures fulfill a key objective of financial reporting, i.e., improving decision usefulness for investors. We propose a stock-price-based measure for assessing the quality of earnings quality measures. We predict that firms with higher...