The Effect of Analyst-Auditor Connections on Analysts’ Performance
利用中国数据发现，分析师若与公司签字审计师有社会关系，其盈余预测更准确、偏差更小；这种关系在强制轮换时影响显著，且关联分析师职业前景更好。
Using Chinese data, we find that analysts’ earnings forecasts are more accurate and less biased when analysts are socially connected with the company’s signatory auditor. We also find that forecast performance improves following mandatory auditor rotations that result in new analyst-auditor connections and declines following mandatory rotations that terminate existing connections. We further find that our results become stronger when the information that auditors possess is likely to be more useful to analysts, that connected analysts have better career outcomes than unconnected analysts, and that investors and other analysts are more responsive to forecast revisions issued by connected analysts. Finally, we find that connected auditors provide higher quality audits to their connected clients and are more likely to retain those clients. Overall, our findings are consistent with connected analysts benefitting from private information obtained from their social connections with auditors by providing better earnings forecasts, and in turn, with auditors benefitting from information they receive from connected analysts by delivering higher quality audits that improve client retention.