Essays on management earnings forecasts

Abstract

The purpose of the dissertation is to shed light on the iterative nature of management earnings forecasts characteristics by means of a new measure of consistency and to provide empirical evidence on both the cross-sectional determinants of the measure and its effects on the information environment. More precisely, the dissertation investigates i) the role of firm-specific variables in explaining the decision of keeping the set of management earnings forecasts characteristics constant over time; ii) whether the activity of financial analysts is sensitive to the consistency of a given set of earnings forecasts characteristics, and iii) potentially opportunistic disclosure practices whenever a company fails to meet market expectations through management earnings forecasts in a subsequent period.