Does the firm-analyst relationship matter in explaining analysts' earnings forecast errors?
type: Dataset
description: We study whether financial analysts' concern for preserving good relationships with firms' managers motivates them to issue pessimistic or optimistic forecasts. Based on a dataset of one-yearahead EPS forecasts issued by 4 648 analysts concerning 241 French firms (1997-2007), we regress the analysts' forecast accuracy on its unintentional determinants. We then decompose the fixed effect of the regression and we use the firm-analyst pair effect as a measure of the intensity of the firm-analyst relationship. We find that a low (high) firm-analyst pair effect is associated with a low (high) forecast error. This observation suggests that pessimism and optimism result from the analysts' concern for cultivating their relationship with the firm's management.
issued: 2026-05-09T17:14:28.748143
language: en
modified: 2026-05-09T17:14:28.748147
contact point: Organization
  fn: CCSD
keyword: earnings-forecasts
keyword: financial-analysts
keyword: infoeu-reposemanticspreprint
keyword: panel-regression
keyword: preprints-working-papers-
keyword: shsecohumanities-and-social-scienceseconomics-and-finance
keyword: soft-information
landing page: https://hal.science/hal-00862996

Does the firm-analyst relationship matter in explaining analysts' earnings forecast errors?
type: Distribution
format: HTML
issued: 2026-05-09T17:14:28.750640
modified: 2026-05-09T17:14:28.737928
access URL: https://hal.science/hal-00862996

test_moissonnage_selune
type: Agent