1. Introduction and Overview. 2. Detecting Influential Observations and Outliers. 3. Detecting and Assessing Collinearity. 4. Applications and Remedies. 5. Research Issues and Directions for Extensions. Bibliography. Author Index. Subject Index.

Regression Diagnostics: Identifying Influential Data and Sources of Collinearity

Individualism and collectivism

Earnings Management and Investor Protection: An International Comparison

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

We investigate whether superior performance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies leads to better access to finance. We hypothesize that better access to finance can be attributed to (1) reduced agency costs due to enhanced stakeholder engagement and (2) reduced informational asymmetry due to increased transparency. Using a large cross-section of firms, we find that firms with better CSR performance face significantly lower capital constraints. We provide evidence that both better stakeholder engagement and transparency around CSR performance are important in reducing capital constraints. The results are further confirmed using several alternative measures of capital constraints, a paired analysis based on a ratings shock to CSR performance, an instrumental variables approach, and a simultaneous equations approach. Finally, we show that the relation is driven by both the social and environmental dimension of CSR. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Corporate social responsibility and access to finance

We examine how cross-country differences in product, capital, and labor market competition, as well as earnings management affect mean reversion in accounting return on assets. Using a sample of 48,465 unique firms from 49 countries, we find that accounting returns mean revert faster in countries where there is more product and capital market competition, as predicted by economic theory. Country differences in labor market competition and earnings management are also related to mean reversion in accounting returns—but the relation varies with firm performance. Country labor competition increases mean reversion when unexpected returns are positive but slows it when unexpected returns are negative. Accounting returns in countries with higher earnings management mean revert more slowly for profitable firms and more rapidly for loss firms. Thus earnings management incentives to slow or speed up mean reversion in accounting returns are accentuated in countries where there is a high propensity for earnings management. Overall, these findings suggest that country factors explain mean reversion in accounting returns and are therefore relevant for firm valuation.

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Market Competition, Earnings Management, and Persistence in Accounting Profitability Around the World

Prior research on equity analysts focuses almost exclusively on those employed by sell-side investment banks and brokerage houses. Yet investment firms undertake their own buy-side research, and their analysts face different stock selection and recommendation incentives than their sell-side peers. We examine the selection and performance of stocks recommended by analysts at a large investment firm relative to those of sell-side analysts from mid-1997 to 2004. We find that the buy-side firm’s analysts issue less optimistic recommendations for stocks with larger market capitalizations and lower return volatility than their sell-side peers, consistent with their facing fewer conflicts of interest and having a preference for liquid stocks. Tests with no controls for these effects indicate that annualized buy-side strong buy/buy recommendations underperform those for sell-side peers by 5.9% using market-adjusted returns and by 3.8% using four-factor model abnormal returns. However, these findings are driven by differences in the stocks recommended and their market capitalization. After controlling for these selection effects, we find no difference in the performance of the buy- and sell-side analysts’ strong buy/buy recommendations.

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The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts

We study how career concerns influence banking analysts’ forecasts and how their forecasting behavior benefits both them and bank managers. We show that banking analysts issue early in the year relatively more optimistic and later in the year more pessimistic forecasts for banks that could be their future employers. This pattern is not observed when the same analysts forecast earnings of companies that are not likely to be their future employers. Moreover, we use the Global Settlement as an exogenous shock, which limited outside opportunities and therefore exacerbated career concerns, and show that this forecast pattern is more pronounced after the Settlement. Both analysts and bank executives benefit from this behavior. Analysts issuing more biased forecasts for potential future employers are more likely to face favorable career outcomes and bank executives appear to profit from the analysts bias since the bias is associated with higher levels of insider trading. Our results highlight the bias created by asking analysts to rate their outside opportunities in the labor market.

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Career Concerns of Banking Analysts

Using survey data to judge how analyst forecasts are related to evaluations of companies’ industry competitiveness, strategic choices, and internal capabilities, the authors found that analyst forecasts are associated with many of the factors that money managers rate as important in their assessments of analyst contributions. They also found wide variation in ratings consistency across variables among analysts covering the same company. On average, consistency is higher for sell-side analysts than for buy-side analysts.

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What Factors Drive Analyst Forecasts

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/15168714/15-085.pdf?sequence=1

Georgios Serafeim

Papers

Market Competition, Earnings Management, and Persistence in Accounting Profitability Around the World

The Stock Selection and Performance of Buy-Side Analysts

Career Concerns of Banking Analysts

What Factors Drive Analyst Forecasts

Career Concerns of Banking Analysts