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This paper aims to focus on the role of financial analysts in corporate fraud in the Chinese stock market.

Data on the analyst coverage and all the types of corporate fraud were obtained for 16,284 company-year observations of Chinese companies. The sample was subsequently divided into those of state-owned enterprises, before and after financial crisis.

The overall results indicate that analyst coverage effectively deters the occurrence of fraud. The sub-sample results suggest that the impact of analysts on deterring fraud is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, especially after the financial crisis. The path analyses show that analyst coverage can deter corporate frauds by affecting information transparency and investor attention. Furthermore, the results show that the deterrence role of financial analysts varies with fraud types: it is more pronounced in deterring disclosure fraud, but not as effective in illegal guarantees and illegal insider dealing. Moreover, analyst coverage can deter the occurrence of fictitious reporting, intentional postponement and material omission.

This paper not only examined the overall fraud probability but also taking into consideration the heterogeneity of the information availability and research focus of financial analysts and examined the analysts’ impact on the occurrence of difference types of fraud. Moreover, this paper explored why financial analysts can deter corporate frauds through path analyses.

Managers generally have discretion in determining how components of earnings are presented in financial statements in distinguishing between “normal” earnings and items classified as unusual, special, significant, exceptional or abnormal. Prior research has found that such intra‐period classificatory choice is used as a form of earnings management. Prior to 2001, Australian accounting standards mandated that unusually large items of revenue and expense be classified as “abnormal items” for financial reporting, but this classification was removed from accounting standards from 2001. This move by the regulators was partly in response to concerns that the abnormal classification was being used opportunistically to manage reported pre‐abnormal earnings. The purpose of this paper is to extend the earnings management literature by examining the reporting of abnormal items for evidence of intra‐period classificatory earnings management in the unique Australian setting.

This study investigates associations between reporting of abnormal items and incentives in the form of analyst following and the earnings benchmarks of analysts' forecasts, earnings levels, and earnings changes, for a sample of Australian, top‐500 firms, for the seven‐year period from 1994 to 2000.

The findings suggest there are systematic differences between firms reporting abnormal items and those with no abnormal items. Results show evidence that, on average, firms shifted expense items from pre‐abnormal earnings to bottom line net income through reclassification as abnormal losses.

The paper's findings suggest that the standard setters were justified in removing the “abnormal” classification from the accounting standard. However, it cannot be assumed that all firms acted opportunistically in the classification of items as abnormal. With the removal of the standardised classification of items outside normal operations as “abnormal”, firms lost the opportunity to use such disclosures as a signalling device, with the consequential effect of limiting the scope of effectively communicating information about the nature of items presented in financial reports.

Findings in the literature indicate leading financial analysts attract high levels of market attention and provide more accurate earnings forecasts prior to becoming all-star analysts. Furthermore, these analysts significantly impact the investment decisions of other market participants and thus the market price of assets. Therefore, this study examines the information role of leading financial analysts and identifies two significant conclusions. First, the positive outcomes of these analyst leaders are more informative and attract more followers. Second, informational herding by followers of these analysts is not as naïve as suggested in previous studies, as followers who smartly use information from analyst leaders tend to perform better. We also find that analysts who practice smart learning by studying and selectively employing analyst-leader decisions achieve better career outcomes.

In this study, the authors investigate if analysts, as knowledgeable information intermediaries, can correctly identify bank corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and can reliably transmit that information to investors. Hence, the authors specifically explore if analysts perceive and behave differentially in the presence of genuine bank CSR activities (strengths). The authors also analyze if financial markets differentially assess bank CSR strengths. The authors further explore the viability of focusing on analyst and financial markets to validate genuine bank CSR strengths.

The authors use COMPUSTAT and CRSP for firm and financial data, I/B/E/S for analyst reporting data and MCSI Research KLD for CSR data. The sample consists of 329 distinct banks and 2,525 bank-year observations from 2003 to 2016. The primary CSR score is the total number of CSR strengths less the total number of CSR concerns, across six of the seven dimensions for each firm in each year of the sample (Adjusted CSR Score). In addition, the authors estimate all the analyses with dis-aggregated measures of total CSR strengths and total CSR concerns (Adjusted Total Strength Score).

The authors find that analysts correctly distinguish and construe bank CSR strengths from CSR concerns. Specifically, bank CSR strengths increase analyst following and forecast accuracy, while decreasing analyst forecast dispersion. The authors further find that bank CSR strengths increase bank market returns. These results are reversed for bank CSR concerns. Additionally, the authors demonstrate that this method using knowledgeable intermediaries can help validate bank CSR strengths.

The sample is limited to US banks and financial markets. The regulatory and information environment is likely to be different from global or emerging markets. However, since banks in many countries aspire to emulate the US banks, these results would be a precursor of banking sectors conditions in emerging markets. Additionally, the availability of data limits the sample to a period that ends in 2016. To the extent that the importance of ESG and CSR concerns has increased in the intervening time, the results may not accurately reflect the current state of the market.

This investigation benefits researchers, customers, banking executives, regulators and activist groups. First, the authors show that in addition to customers, analysts and the financial markets appreciate bank CSR strengths. Second, despite sophisticated financial reporting by banks, analysts correctly distinguish and construe bank CSR strengths. Third, the authors demonstrate a method for bank marketing researchers to validate genuine bank CSR activity, as well as provide additional support for customer related bank CSR outcomes. Fourth, the findings highlight the importance for banks to have high-quality CSR reporting. This might be especially helpful to a bank rebuilding its reputation after a CSR failure. Finally, this investigation using US banks could serve as a precursor for future bank CSR research and help develop CSR reporting guidelines for banks in emerging economies.

This investigation benefits researchers, customers, banking executives, regulators and activist groups.

This investigation benefits researchers, customers, banking executives, regulators and activist groups. First, the authors show that in addition to customers, analysts and the financial market appreciates bank CSR strengths. Second, despite sophisticated financial reporting by banks, analysts correctly distinguish and construe bank CSR strengths. Third, the authors demonstrate a method for bank marketing researchers to validate genuine bank CSR activity, as well as provide additional support for customer related bank CSR outcomes. Fourth, the findings highlight the importance for banks to have high-quality CSR reporting. This might be especially helpful to a bank rebuilding its reputation after a CSR failure. Finally, this investigation using US banks could serve as a precursor for future bank CSR research and help develop CSR reporting guidelines for banks in emerging economies.

This study aims to assess the informativeness of carbon emission data for the stock markets and the mediating role played by financial analysts and the quality of the governance on this issue.

Relying on structural equation modelling, the authors assess the relation between embedded CO₂ disclosure or CO₂ emissions disclosure and the stock market valuation (Tobin Q), considering the mediating roles played by financial analysts (external monitoring) and corporate governance (internal monitoring).

Results based on a sample of North American firms in the oil and gas industry are the following. The disclosure of embedded CO₂ is negatively associated with a firm’s market value, but this association is mediated by analyst following and corporate governance. The disclosure of yearly CO₂ emissions is also negatively related to stock market value, while corporate governance mediates this negative impact, and analysts following does not. Considering that yearly CO₂ emissions represent short-term environmental risks, whereas embedded CO₂ represents long-term environmental risks, it appears important to consider embedded CO₂ when studying the impact of carbon disclosure on firm value. The authors also show that a firm’s environmental performance (measured by Carbon Disclosure Project – CDP) is positively associated with two mediating variables (i.e. analyst following and corporate governance).

The study results suggest that CO₂ emissions information is less relevant than embedded CO₂ in attracting financial analysts when they are assessing a firm’s value because it represents short-term environmental risks, whereas embedded CO₂ represents long-term environmental risks. Therefore, the authors consider important to include embedded CO₂ when studying the impact of environmental disclosure on a firm’s value.

This study aims to examine the role of principal–principal (P–P) agency conflict in shaping the information environment of firms in China. Moreover, it investigates whether audit quality and analyst following play any role in moderating the effects of P–P agency conflict.

The authors used principal component analysis to synthesize a measure of P–P agency conflict and used accruals quality as measure of information quality. They used two-step Arellano Bond system GMM estimators to cope with potential endogeniety in the model. Moreover, they also performed subsample analyses based on state ownership to ensure the robustness of findings.

The results of this paper provide evidence that high P–P agency conflict is associated with poor information quality in China. But this is not true for subsample of state-owned enterprises. Moreover, better audit quality and high analyst following mitigate the negative effects of high P–P agency conflict on information quality but only in subsample of non-state-owned enterprises.

The findings of this paper are important, as they contribute in literature on forces shaping the information environment of firms. Moreover, it presents audit quality and analyst following as external governance mechanisms to alleviate the negative consequences of the P–P agency conflict vastly embedded in the ownership structure of firms in China.

The purpose of this paper is to document performance of analysts’ recommendations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region during the period between 1999 and 2010.

This paper uses post-announcement market-adjusted returns as a measure of performance and computes returns for different holding periods. Significant positive (negative) returns following buy (sell) recommendation will indicate value relevance of these recommendations.

The authors show that analysts’ buy recommendations have significant information in them, while their sell recommendations contain no significant information. Significant positive returns are reported following analysts’ buy recommendations and insignificant returns following their sell recommendations. Furthermore, it is also shown that these results hold true only in markets where institutions are relatively strong (common law countries and countries with stronger property rights) and for firms which have lower agency conflicts (firms that pay dividends and have concentrated ownership). For markets where institutions are relatively weak and for firms which have greater agency conflicts, these results show no value in analysts’ recommendations.

These results imply that investors should not blindly follow analyst recommendations while making their investment decisions in the MENA region.

This paper makes detailed analysis of analyst recommendations in previously unexplored MENA region. Some conditions under which analyst recommendation have no value and some conditions under which they have partial value have also been identified.

This paper aims to make a comparison, different from existing literature solely focusing on voluntary earnings forecasts and ex post earnings surprise, between the effects of mandatory earnings surprise warnings and voluntary information disclosure issued by management teams on financial analysts in terms of the number of followings and the accuracy of earnings forecasts.

This paper uses panel data analysis with fixed effects on data collected from Chinese public firms between 2006 and 2010. It uses an exogenous regulation enforcement to minimise the endogeneity problem.

This paper finds that financial analysts are less likely to follow firms which mandatorily issue earnings surprise warnings ex ante than those voluntarily issue earnings forecasts. Moreover, ex post, they issue less accurate and more dispersed forecasts on former firms. The results support Brown et al.’s (2009) finding in the USA and suggest that the earnings surprise warnings affect information asymmetries.

This paper justifies the mandatory earnings surprise warnings policy issued by Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission in 2006.

Mandatory earnings surprise is a unique practical regulation for publicly listed firms in China. This paper, for the first time, provides empirical evaluation on the effectiveness of a mandatory information disclosure policy in China. Consistent with existing literature on information disclosure by public firms in other countries, this paper finds that, in China, voluntary information disclosure captures more private information than mandatory information disclosure on corporate earnings ability.

We highlight two mechanisms of limited attention for expert information intermediaries, i.e., analysts, and the effects of such limited attention on the market price discovery process. We approach analysts' limited attention from the perspective of day-to-day arrival of information and processing of tasks. We examine the attention-limiting role of competing tasks (number of earnings announcements and forecasts for portfolio firms) and distracting events (number of earnings announcements for non-portfolio firms) in analysts' forecast accuracy and the effects of such, on the subsequent price discovery process. Our results show that competing tasks worsen analysts' forecast accuracy, and competing task induced limited attention delays the market price adjustment process. On the other hand, distracting events can improve analysts' forecast accuracy and accelerate market price adjustments when such events relate to analysts' portfolio firms through industry memberships.

This paper aims to use Australian analysts' forecast data to compare the relative accuracy of consensus and the most recent forecast in the month before the earnings announcement.

Cross‐sectional regression is used on a sample of 4,358 company‐year observations of annual analyst forecasts to examine whether the number of analysts following and the timeliness of an individual analyst's forecast is more strongly associated with the superior forecast measure.

The results suggest that whilst in the late 1980s the most recent forecast was more accurate than the consensus, since the early 1990s the accuracy of the consensus forecast has outperformed the most recent forecast in 15 out of 17 years, and the differences are significant for nine out of 15 years. The forecasting superiority of the consensus can be attributed to the aggregating value of the consensus outweighing the small timing advantage of the most recent forecast over the short forecast horizon examined in this paper.

Given the consistent use of analysts' forecasts as proxies for expected earnings in Australian research, this paper provides insights to what extent the expected level of forecast accuracy is realised and the reasons for the greater accuracy in the superior forecast measure.

The findings confirm market practitioners' views that the consensus forecast is a better measure of the market's earnings expectations.

This paper provides direct evidence of the accuracy of alternative forecast measures and the importance of diversifying idiosyncratic individual error across analyst forecasts.