IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/24487.html

Competition and opportunistic advice of financial analysts: theory and evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Sette, Enrico

Abstract

This work investigates both theoretically and empirically how the behaviour of financial analysts is affected by competition, measured as the strength of coverage of a stock from other analysts. The interaction among analysts and investors is modelled as a dynamic cheap talk game. The theoretical model shows that analysts having a conflict of interest with investors, report information truthfully with higher probability if other, “neutral”, analysts report information on the same stock. This empirical prediction is tested on data about recommendations on IPOs. The main result is that analysts working for the lead underwriter of the IPO (“insiders”) are more optimistic when there are no other analysts (not working for the lead underwriter, “outsiders”) covering the stock. The data also show that insiders do not seem to use the information contained in outsiders recommendations. Finally, outsiders are not influenced by recommendations previously issued by insiders. These results also allow to discriminate between competing hypothesis brought forward to explain insider’s overoptimism. The empirical evidence suggests that insider analysts overoptimism is induced by incentives rather than by a “psychological bias”.

Suggested Citation

  • Sette, Enrico, 2007. "Competition and opportunistic advice of financial analysts: theory and evidence," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24487, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:24487
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/24487/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roland Benabou & Guy Laroque, 1992. "Using Privileged Information to Manipulate Markets: Insiders, Gurus, and Credibility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 921-958.
    2. Andrew R. Jackson, 2005. "Trade Generation, Reputation, and Sell‐Side Analysts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 673-717, April.
    3. Stephen Morris, 2001. "Political Correctness," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 231-265, April.
    4. Harrison Hong & Jeffrey D. Kubik, 2003. "Analyzing the Analysts: Career Concerns and Biased Earnings Forecasts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(1), pages 313-351, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schottmüller, Christoph, 2019. "Too good to be truthful: Why competent advisers are fired," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 333-360.
    2. Xiaojing Meng, 2015. "Analyst Reputation, Communication, and Information Acquisition," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 53(1), pages 119-173, March.
    3. Sette, Enrico, 2011. "Competition and optimistic advice of financial analysts: Evidence from IPOs," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 441-457, July.
    4. Tiana Lehmer & Ben Lourie & Devin Shanthikumar, 2022. "Brokerage trading volume and analysts’ earnings forecasts: a conflict of interest?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 441-476, June.
    5. Lily Fang & Ayako Yasuda, 2014. "Are Stars’ Opinions Worth More? The Relation Between Analyst Reputation and Recommendation Values," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 46(3), pages 235-269, December.
    6. Régis BRETON & Sébastien GALANTI & Christophe HURLIN & Anne-Gaël VAUBOURG, 2011. "Does the firm-analyst relationship matter in explaining analysts' earnings forecast errors?," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 469, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    7. Kunal Sengupta & Amal Sanyal, 2004. "Delegation in a Cheap-Talk Game: A Voting Example," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 471, Econometric Society.
    8. Jindapon, Paan & Oyarzun, Carlos, 2013. "Persuasive communication when the sender's incentives are uncertain," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 111-125.
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15217 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Hu, Jun & Long, Wenbin & Luo, Le & Peng, Yuanhuai, 2021. "Share pledging and optimism in analyst earnings forecasts: Evidence from China," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    11. Johan Lagerlof & Lars Frisell, 2004. "Lobbying, Information Transmission, and Unequal Representation," Microeconomics 0402013, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Ji, Xu & Dong, Yan & Vagnani, Gianluca & Yang, Xiaoqi, 2024. "Stock market reactions and optimism bias in analysts’ earnings forecasts: An analysis of China's stock markets," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    13. Dobler, Michael, 2008. "Incentives for risk reporting -- A discretionary disclosure and cheap talk approach," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 184-206.
    14. Xu, Nianhang & Jiang, Xuanyu & Chan, Kam C. & Yi, Zhihong, 2013. "Analyst coverage, optimism, and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 217-239.
    15. Nolte, Ingmar & Nolte, Sandra & Vasios, Michalis, 2014. "Sell-side analysts’ career concerns during banking stresses," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 424-441.
    16. Yang, Yanhua Sunny & Yung, Chris, 2024. "Do analysts distribute negative opinions earlier?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    17. Arnold Polanski & Mark Quement, 2023. "The battle of opinion: dynamic information revelation by ideological senders," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 52(2), pages 463-483, June.
    18. Kim, Kyungmin & Pogach, Jonathan, 2014. "Honesty vs. advocacy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 51-74.
    19. Michael J. Jung & Yiqing Lü & Hong Wu & Yuhai Xuan, 2026. "Do Professional Rankings Affect Analyst Behavior? Evidence From a Regression Discontinuity Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 72(4), pages 3390-3410, April.
    20. Thabang Mokoaleli-Mokoteli & Richard J. Taffler & Vineet Agarwal, 2009. "Behavioural Bias and Conflicts of Interest in Analyst Stock Recommendations," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3-4), pages 384-418.
    21. Dong, Rui & Fisman, Raymond & Wang, Yongxiang & Xu, Nianhang, 2021. "Air pollution, affect, and forecasting bias: Evidence from Chinese financial analysts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 971-984.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:24487. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.