How Has Regulation FD Affected the Operations of Financial Analysts?*
分析公平披露规则通过后，金融分析师如何调整信息获取方式、公司覆盖决策和预测准确性，发现分析师更依赖个性化信息发现，且大型券商分析师的优势被削弱。
Abstract In this paper, we analyze how financial analysts generate information, make decisions about firm coverage, and try to maintain their forecasting accuracy after the passage of Regulation Fair Disclosure (“Reg FD”). Using the model developed by Barron, Kim, Lim, and Stevens 1998, we find that analysts are investing more effort in idiosyncratic information discovery. In order to do this, individual analysts appear to be reducing coverage for well‐followed firms while increasing coverage of firms that were less followed prior to Reg FD. Analysts who had preferential links with firms that they covered, such as analysts from large brokerage houses, tend to have greater forecast accuracy in the pre‐FD period. However, these analysts are unable to sustain their forecasting superiority in the post‐FD period, which suggests that there has been a leveling of the information playing field among analysts. Overall, our results reflect a trend toward greater reliance on idiosyncratic information discovery on part of the financial analysts.