We examine how sell-side equity analysts strategically disclose information of differing quality to the public versus the buy-side mutual fund managers to whom they are connected. We consider cases in which analysts recommend that the public buys a stock, but some fund managers sell it. We...

We investigate whether investor sentiment affects the research quality of sell-side analysts. As institutional investors regard industry knowledge as the most important element of sell-side service, we use it to proxy for sell-side research quality. Using textual analysis to measure the industry...

An important determinant of belief polarization is the different interpretations of the same information. We examine whether discourse uncertainty in corporate disclosures, an important driver of differential interpretations, leads to polarization in financial markets. Using a novel measure of...

Firms covered by more analysts are more likely to become takeover targets and more likely to enter deals in which their acquirers initiate private merger negotiations. Moreover, when equity analysts' pre-acquisition price forecasts imply greater target undervaluation, target firms are more...

While academics have extensively studied quantitative models of credit risk, far less is known about credit analysts' "behind-the-scenes" adjustments to the ratings generated by their models. Using both dictionary-based and topic modeling approaches, we examine whether and how credit analysts...

Takeover targets covered by more equity analysts receive higher premiums while their acquirers earn lower merger announcement returns. We confirm these results using exogenous shocks to coverage as instruments for coverage loss. The analyses also show that covered targets experience a permanent...

Using unique new data, we examine whether brokerage trading volume creates a conflict of interest for analysts' earnings forecasts. We find that forecast optimism is associated with higher brokerage volume, even controlling for forecast and analyst quality, recommendations, and target prices....

This paper is the first to investigate the role of work-life balance in financial analysts' performance and career advancement. Using a large sample of Glassdoor reviews by financial analysts, we find a significant non-linear relation between perceived work-life balance and analyst performance...

This paper is the first to investigate the role of work-life balance in financial analysts’ performance and career advancement. Using a large sample of Glassdoor reviews by financial analysts, we find a significant non-linear relation between work-life balance and analyst performance and...

Using an extensive database of 356,463 sell-side equity analysts' reports from 2002 to 2009, this study is one of the first to analyze the readability of analysts' reports. We first examine the determinants of variations in analyst report readability. Using several proxies for ability, we show...