Climate Disasters and Analysts’ Earnings Forecasts: Evidence from the United States
研究了美国气候灾害如何影响分析师盈利预测的准确性和离散度，发现气候灾害通过资产收益率波动、现金流波动和财务报表可比性下降等渠道恶化预测质量，且对气候脆弱行业影响更显著。
We examine the relationship between climate disasters and analysts’ earnings forecasts in the United States. We find that climate disasters are associated with deteriorated analyst forecast properties proxied by forecast errors and forecast dispersion. We reason that the volatility of return on assets and of cash flows, and lower financial statement comparability, are three potential channels through which climate disasters influence analyst forecast properties. We also find that this relationship is more pronounced for firms in climate-vulnerable industries. Results from the market reaction tests further support our main findings by showing that the stock market responds less strongly to positive earnings surprises during periods of high climate disasters. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests, including a two-stage least squares approach and a difference-in-differences specification. Overall, the results shed light on the association between climate disasters and analysts’ earnings forecasts, which has significant implications for academics, investors, and standard setters.