Can Stock Recommendations Predict Earnings Management and Analysts’ Earnings Forecast Errors?
发现，股票推荐评级（如卖出或买入）会影响公司管理盈余的动机，进而影响分析师预测误差。卖出评级的公司更常进行极端减损盈余的管理，买入评级的公司则更可能使盈余达到或略高于分析师预测。
In this article we present evidence that a firm's stock price sensitivity to earnings news, as measured by outstanding stock recommendation, affects its incentives to manage earnings and, in turn, affects analysts’ ex post forecast errors. In particular, we find a tendency for firms rated a Sell (Buy) to engage more (less) frequently in extreme, income–decreasing earnings management, indicating that they have relatively stronger (weaker) incentives to create accounting reserves especially in the form of earnings baths than other firms. In contrast, firms rated a Buy (Sell) are more (less) likely to engage in earnings management that leaves reported earnings equal to or slightly higher than analysts’ forecasts. Our empirical results provide direct evidence of purported, but heretofore, weakly documented equity market incentives for firms to manage earnings. They are also consistent with a growing body of literature that finds analysts either cannot anticipate or are not motivated to anticipate completely in their forecasts firms’ efforts to manage earnings.