The effect of financial analysts on the economic implications of disclosed lease information – a note

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether financial analyst coverage affects the dissemination of disclosed operating lease information into cash flow predictions and stock prices. Design/methodology/approach - The difference in lease expense between capital/finance lease and operating lease reporting is estimated based on the approach in Hsieh and Su (2015). This difference is referred to as the earnings impact from operating lease capitalization and is only available from footnotes. The authors then include the level of financial analyst following in a cash flow model to study its impact on the cash flow predictive value of the earnings impact. Similarly, the level of financial analyst following is inserted in an earnings-return model to assess the effect of analyst coverage on the association between contemporaneous stock returns and earnings impact. Findings - The authors find that the cash flow predictive value of the earnings impact shifts to the interaction between analyst coverage and the earnings impact, suggesting that the decision-usefulness of the earnings impact is conditioned on the level of analyst following. Nevertheless, the authors find that the earnings impact continues to have explanatory value for the contemporaneous stock returns, while the interaction between analyst coverage and the earnings impact does not. This finding suggests that the earnings impact is already fully reflected in stock prices regardless of analyst following. Research limitations/implications - Since the estimation of the earnings impact from reporting operating leases as capital leases is based on the method developed by Imhoffet al.(1991), the results and inferences are thus constrained by the validity of the method. Practical implications - The authors find that financial analyst activities accelerate the incorporation of the earnings impact from operating lease capitalization in cash flow predictions, but it does not promote the impounding of the earnings impact into stock prices. This finding suggests that financial analysts' influence on the dissemination of the earnings impact hinges on the type of economic activity, and failing to consider the financial analyst following in studying the cash flow predictive value of the earnings impact would obscure the findings. Originality/value - The authors extend the findings of prior research that financial analysts' activities promote the incorporation of firm-specific information into stock prices by investigating the impact of financial analysts on the dissemination of disclosed operating lease information.