Balanced but not fair: Strategic balancing, rating allocations, and third-party intermediaries
研究了中介机构为维持信誉而进行战略平衡，即在给出过多正面评级后倾向于给出负面评级，导致评价偏差，对理解分析师评级动机和金融市场信息质量有参考价值。
This article examines how two fundamental features of many intermediaries—that intermediaries provide ratings across a set of candidates (their portfolio), and that intermediaries wish to look credible to their audiences—may create the potential for bias in evaluation outcomes. I examine how having too many positive ratings, which risks intermediary credibility, may bias an intermediary in favor of giving a subsequent negative rating, which I term strategic balancing. My setting is the ratings given by equity analysts on publicly traded firms. I find evidence consistent with a strategic balancing effect, such that having a greater allocation of high ratings in an analyst’s portfolio is associated with a subsequent negative rating, particularly when such ratings can be justified. My findings suggest that lower ratings may not be the result of poor firm performance, but instead may occur because such a rating allows an intermediary to maintain credibility. That is, the very features that define the role of the intermediary—one who interprets many market offerings for a particular audience—can create the conditions in which its evaluations may be subjective.