The Effect of Regulation Fair Disclosure on the Relevance of Conference Calls to Financial Analysts

This study examines the effect of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD) on the relevance of company-sponsored conference calls. Measuring relevance by a conference call's ability to improve analyst forecast accuracy and consensus, I find larger improvements in both variables during the period surrounding conference calls in the post-FD era versus the pre-FD era. These findings imply that in the post-FD era relatively more about a firm's upcoming earnings becomes known during conference calls, consistent with FD's success in eliminating selective disclosure. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004