Book Description

Essay 1: The Association of Earnings Quality with Financial Analysts' Earnings Forecast Attributes. This study investigates the association between firms' earnings quality and analysts' forecast errors and dispersion. The findings suggest that the quality of earnings is inversely related to analysts' forecast errors but is not associated with forecast dispersion. These results are better understood by an examination of the relationship of forecast error and dispersion with the major sub-components of earnings quality- the quality of the innate accrual component (quality of accruals related to the complexity of the firm's operations) and the quality of the discretionary accrual component (quality of managements' judgment as reflected in accruals used to project future performance). The inverse association between earnings quality and forecast error is driven primarily by the quality of the firm's innate accrual component (InnAQ). As firm complexity and variability increase, earnings contain larger amounts of management judgment and estimation. The larger amount of management estimation included in earnings renders it relatively less reliable and thus forecasting difficulty (reflected in greater forecast errors and dispersion) is amplified for poorer InnAQ. This inverse association is the dominant effect in earnings quality's association with analysts' forecast errors. The quality of firms' discretionary accrual components depends upon whether managers use of their discretion to provide value relevant information, or whether they use the discretionary component to incorporate manipulative and noisy discretionary accruals. In a regression of the of firms' discretionary earnings components on forecast dispersion I find an inverse relationship between the magnitude of the firm's discretionary earnings component and analysts' forecast dispersion. This is consistent with managers using the discretionary component to provide information on firm performance, thus facilitating more precision in analysts' forecasts. This essay contributes to two controversial areas of accounting research. The study indirectly provides evidence supporting managers' (on average) use of their discretion to provide value relevant information in earnings; and it simultaneously demonstrates analysts' expertise in incorporating information related to EQ and its sub components into their forecasts. Essay 2: The Influence of Earnings Quality on Financial Analysts' Herding Behavior. Essay 2 investigates how firms' EQ and its innate (the quality of accruals related to the complexity of the firm's operations) and discretionary (the quality of accruals based on managements' discretion) sub-components affect analysts' motivation to issue herding forecasts. Herding forecasts are forecasts which mimic those issued by other analysts and ignore the analyst's own private information. Although theoretical studies have linked herding behavior to analysts' rational reputational concerns, herding reduces the information available to investors in the market and hence negatively impacts market efficiency. Conversely, bold forecasts, forecasts issued which move away from the consensus (linked in prior studies to greater private information release and higher accuracy) are likely to contribute to improved market efficiency. As capital market intermediaries, financial analysts are charged with facilitating investors' investment decisions. The literature documents that poor earnings quality reduces investors' ability to evaluate firm performance. This essay contributes to the literature by providing evidence on how financial analysts' herding behavior is influenced by EQ and its sub components. Results show that the quality of the firm's innate accrual component is the major driver of analysts' bold forecasting. The negative association between forecast boldness and firms' innate accrual quality indicates that analysts issue bolder forecasts when investors have more difficulty determining firm value (noisier signal from innate accrual component). Given the prior literature finds that bolder forecasts contain more private information and are more accurate, the results suggests that analysts are effectively performing their market intermediary function. The lack of a significant association between bold forecasting and the discretionary earnings component is in line with prior literature's documentation of analysts' poor utilization of the discretionary information in their forecasts. However, this study's evidence of a positive association between bold forecasts and analysts' firm specific experience implies that analysts with more firm specific experience have a greater understanding of managers' discretionary signals and exploit their advantage by issuing bolder forecasts. Results show a negative association between firms' overall EQ and analysts' forecast boldness implying that analysts herd more the higher the firm's EQ. This finding underscores the importance of reputational concerns and the demand for analysts' investment advice for analysts' herding behavior.