学术前沿讲座——Common ownership and analyst forecasts

邀 请 人

潘健平

职 称

讲师

专    业

会计学

讲座题目

Common ownership and analyst forecasts

拟定时间

2019年12月23日 14：00

拟定地点

经济管理学院B203室

被邀请

专家信息

姓    名

罗淑清

职 称

副教授

工作单位

香港大学

研究方向

会计与财务

简介：罗淑清，香港大学会计系副教授。2003年获得南洋理工大学会计学硕士学位。2010年获得匹兹堡大学会计学博士学位。已经在Journal of Accounting and Economics 、The Accounting Review、Academy of Management Journal 、Strategic Management Journal等顶级学术期刊发表论文多篇。

讲座内容

We examine the effects of the common ownership relation between brokerage houses and the firms covered by their analysts on analyst forecast performance (referred to as co-owned brokerage houses, co-owned firms, and connected analysts, respectively). Common ownership can help the connected analysts to have better access to co-owned firms, leading to higher quality analyst research. However, common owners can exert pressure on the connected analysts to issue optimistically biased research reports on the co-owned firms. Whether the former or the latter dominates depends on whether the institutional environments can constrain analyst research bias. Consistent with our predictions, we find that in the U.S., where the institutional environments are strong, common ownership improves analyst forecast accuracy, but in China, where the institutional environments are weak, common ownership induces analyst forecast optimism. Our results are robust to a difference-in-differences empirical design that exploits exogenous shock to the common ownership. The effects vary systematically with the quality of alternative sources of information and common owners’ incentives and abilities to influence connected analysts. Overall, this paper contributes to the literature by documenting that common ownership can facilitate information communication and improve firms’ information environment in countries with strong institutions, but it can induce conflicts-of-interest in countries with weak institutions.