This study classifies analysts' earnings forecasts as "herding" or "bold" and finds that (1) boldness likelihood increases with the analyst's prior accuracy, brokerage size, and experience and declines with the number of industries the analyst follows, consistent with theory linking boldness...

Managers exercise considerable discretion over how they announce an accounting restatement in a press release. Some firms issue a press release that discloses the restatement in the headline (high prominence). Others provide a press release with a headline on a different subject (for example,...

We use the recent disappearance of the accrual anomaly to investigate analysts' contribution to improved information processing by investors. Prior research finds that investors and analysts made accrual-related pricing and forecast errors, respectively, in the anomaly period. As sophisticated...

Prior studies document that firms using a Big 4 auditor have a lower cost of capital than other firms. We extend this literature by examining whether using an industry specialist auditor reduces cost of capital for clients of Big 4 audit firms. We document that firms that use Big 4 auditors that...

The likelihood that earnings announcements meet or beat analyst expectations differs substantially and systematically across firms. Prior research explores managers incentives to meet analyst expectations. In this paper, we examine analysts incentives to issue systematically biased earnings...

We provide evidence on the determinants of the choice of an industry specialist auditor and the effect of this choice on cost of equity for a sample of firms that are audited by Big N auditors. We find that firms with more severe conflicts of interest between managers and shareholders are more...

Prior studies find that analysts tend to bias their forecasts upward in poor information environments and downward in rich information environments, consistent with attempts to curry favor with management. We find that investors anticipate this behavior by reducing their response to upward...

Chinese regulators mandate management earnings forecasts when managers' earnings expectations meet bright-line thresholds and allow voluntary forecasts in other circumstances. We examine the effects of this mixed approach. We find that Chinese mandatory forecasts have significant information...