Does the Form of Management's Earnings Guidance Affect Analysts' Earnings Forecasts? (Retracted)
通过两个实验，研究管理层盈利预测的形式（点估计、窄区间、宽区间）如何影响分析师的预测，发现预测形式在盈利公告后与预测误差交互作用，窄区间放大误差影响，宽区间则减弱。
This study examines how the form of management's earnings guidance (point, narrow range, wide range) affects analysts' earnings forecasts. Results from two experiments demonstrate that: (1) guidance form has no effect on analysts' forecasts made immediately after the guidance; and (2) after the actual earnings announcement, guidance form and the relationship of the earnings guidance to actual earnings (guidance error) interact in their effect on analysts' forecasts. After the actual earnings announcement, guidance error leads to higher (lower) analysts' forecasts for firms with downwardly (upwardly) biased guidance; this effect of guidance error is magnified by a narrow range and reduced by a wide range, compared to a point estimate. These results suggest that treating the mean of the range endpoints as equivalent to a point estimate and failing to consider effects after the release of actual earnings may paint an incomplete picture of how management guidance affects analysts and investors. It also offers useful information to managers who issue earnings guidance, and presents a challenge to the psychology literature regarding the effects of information precision on judgment and decision making.