Company size and the issue of quarterly segment reporting

This study explores the proposition that differences between consolidated (CN) and segmented (SG) income forecasts may depend in part on company size. Simulated mergers of existent autonomous firms provide quarterly time series data and ARIMA models are used to project both quarterly and annual earnings. Small-segment firms tended to yield SG superior predictions for quarterly forecasts, but no such differences were observed for annual forecasts. Large-segment firms tended to yield no CN-SG differences for either quarterly or annual forecasts.