Conflicts of Interest and Research Quality of Affiliated Analysts in the German Universal Banking System: Evidence from IPO Underwriting

The quality of equity research by financial analysts is a prerequisite for an efficient capital market. This study investigates the quality of earnings forecasts and stock recommendations for initial public offerings (IPOs) in Germany. The empirical study includes 12,605 earnings forecasts and 6,209 stock recommendations of individual analysts for the time period from 1997 to 2004. The focus of this study is on analysing the potential conflicts of interest that arise when the analyst is affiliated with the underwriter of an IPO. In a universal banking system these conflicts of interest are usually more pronounced and therefore interesting to investigate. The empirical findings for the German financial market suggest that earnings forecasts and stock recommendations of the analysts belonging to the lead-underwriter are on average inaccurate and biased, indicating some conflicts of interest. Moreover, the stock recommendations of the analysts that are affiliated with the lead-underwriter are often too optimistic resulting in a significant long-run underperformance for the investor. In contrast, unaffiliated analysts provide better earnings forecasts and stock recommendations that result in a superior performance for the investor.     

The Impact of Corporate Environmental Violation on Shareholders' Wealth: a Perspective Taken from Media Coverage

This study provides empirical evidence of the way in which media coverage of corporate environmental violation events affects shareholders' wealth due to stock market reactions. Data relating to the media coverage of the environmental violations of 173 publically traded companies in China, gathered using web crawler technology, were analyzed through multi‐dimensional variables with the purpose of examining the impact of media coverage on stock market reactions in terms of cumulative abnormal return (CAR) under different event windows based on the methodology of event study. The variables include the intensity of media coverage, media information sources, disclosure mode, media newsworthiness, violation entity, whether the company is punished by the government, whether the company makes a clarification and whether the company is ISO 14001 certified. The results obtained reveal that media coverage affects the market values of the event companies to some extent, and that those companies that attract high levels of media attention generally see greater losses in their shareholders' wealth. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The Impact of NASD Rule 2711 and NYSE Rule 472 on Analyst Behavior: The Strategic Timing of Recommendations Issued on Weekends

Amendments to NASD Rule 2711 and NYSE Rule 472, enacted in May 2002, mandate that sell‐side analysts disclose the distribution of their security recommendations by buy, hold and sell category. This regulation enhances the transparency of analysts’ information and mitigates the long‐recognized optimistic bias in their recommendations. However, we find that analysts are more likely to issue sell recommendations or downgrade revisions on weekends when investors have limited attention after these rule changes. This pattern is more pronounced for prestigious analysts, who are more likely to influence stock prices. Market reaction tests reveal an incomplete immediate response and a greater drift to unfavorable recommendations issued on weekends. Finally, analysts who are more likely to release unfavorable recommendations on weekends exhibit higher future forecast accuracy. Our findings suggest that, while these regulatory changes effectively reduce analysts’ optimistic bias, they are also associated with an increased prevalence of a different form of distortion in the capital market.     

行为导向教学法在市场营销专业教学中的应用

行为导向教学法是一种实践性较强的教学方法,有利于培养学生的学习兴趣和解决实际问题的能力。应用行为导向教学法,主要以案例教学、项目教学、情景模拟和角色扮演等方式,并按照一定的步骤组织进行。     

试析信息公开情态下汶川地震报道的摹本化意义

汶川地震报道是<中华人民共和国政府信息公开条例>颁布实施后对信息公开的一次实战检验.条例将政府信息公开明确为政府部门的法定义务,中国政府此期间的信息公开透度前所未有,引起全球舆论的关注.基于建国后我国新闻传播发展历程上审视,其已为我们留下了一笔值得珍藏的里程碑式遗产.论文从信息公开情态、效果分析等角度,试图解读这一因信息高度透明公开所产生的新闻传播范本.     

瑞士人口普查覆盖调查的抽样设计与启示

瑞士2000年首次独立进行人口普查覆盖调查.覆盖调查由抽取建筑物样本、计数建筑物样本住宅、抽取建筑物子样本以减少家庭规模、调查样本家庭和估计人口普查净遗漏率、遗漏率和错误计数率构成.覆盖调查抽样设计分北部和南部分别进行.抽样分两步:第一步抽取建筑物初始样本,第二步从抽取的初始建筑物样本中抽取家庭.北部初始建筑物样本通过三个阶段完成,采取分层不放回不等概率方式抽取.南部初始建筑物样本通过两个阶段完成,采取与北部同样的方式抽取.瑞士方案对我国具有启迪和借鉴作用.     

媒体报道、法律环境与社会责任信息披露

以社会责任相关理论为基础,从多个角度系统地实证研究媒体报道、法律环境与社会责任信息披露的动态关系,探寻企业外部治理因素的作用机理。研究结果显示：媒体负面报道对公司社会责任信息披露有显著的正相关影响;良好的法律环境,相应提高了社会责任的信息披露水平;在法律环境较好的地区,媒体报道对公司的监督效果增强,反映在社会责任信息披露质量的显著增强。     

审计师选择对财务分析师盈余预测的影响研究

文章基于国内外关于审计师选择以及财务分析师盈余预测的相关研究,从委托代理假设、信号传递假设的角度分析了财务分析师在对企业进行盈余分析时,能否认知审计师选择这一信息。研究结果显示,财务分析师的盈余预测与审计师选择呈正向相关,但是不显著,说明了财务分析师对审计师选择信息的认知度较弱,我国的资本市场还存在信息传递误区,以及上市公司内部存在代理冲突等问题。     

乡村振兴政策落实跟踪审计四维审计模式构建——以公共政策评估标准为视角

乡村振兴政策落实跟踪审计是国家审计发挥监督保障治理效应、服务乡村振兴重要而有效的监督方式,是实现乡村治理现代化的重要组成部分。但政策落实跟踪审计在实践中未能做到对乡村振兴审计监督的完全覆盖。针对这一局限,本文首先对借鉴公共政策评估标准构建乡村振兴政策落实跟踪审计四维审计模式的可行性进行分析,然后以公共政策评估标准的形式、事实和价值维度为基础并加以拓展,构建基于公共政策评估标准的乡村振兴政策落实跟踪审计的形式(事前)、事实(事中)、价值和受众(事后)四维审计模式,提出一种涵盖乡村振兴政策落实事前、事中和事后全流程的全覆盖跟踪审计观,以实现乡村振兴政策落实跟踪审计全覆盖,最大限度地促进和保障乡村振兴战略应然目标的生成与显现。研究旨在为审计机关大力推进乡村振兴政策落实跟踪审计全覆盖提供理论基础、实践启示与参考借鉴。     

Analyst Earnings Forecasts for Publicly Traded Insurance Companies

Several trends in the insurance and financial services industry, including demutualizationconsolidation, and deregulation, have attracted increasing attention from investors and financial analysts. This paper investigates the accuracy of the earnings forecasts of financial analysts for insurance companies. Our empirical results indicate that analyst forecasts outperform random walk time-series forecasts. Furthermore, we find that both disagreement over earnings forecasts among analysts and the relative forecasting error in the mean forecasts is smaller for life insurers than for property-casualty insurers, whereas the relative errors for forecasts for multiple-line insurers are in between the two. Forecasting error is a negative function of firm size and the number of analysts who are following a company, and is a positive function of the disagreement among analysts.Analyst forecasts have a timing advantage over the random walk model. Our results also suggest that the fair value reporting requirement (SFAS 115), which has been in effect since 1994, has enhanced the accuracy of analyst forecasts. The SFAS 115 has improved the superiority of analyst forecasts over the random walk forecasts for life insurers, but not for property-casualty insurers, and there is a weak improvement for multiple-line insurers. JEL Classification: G15