We survey 344 buy-side analysts from 181 investment firms and conduct 16 detailed follow-up interviews to gain insights into the activities of buy-side analysts, including the determinants of their compensation, the inputs to their stock recommendations, their beliefs about financial reporting quality, and the role of sell-side analysts in buy-side research. One important finding is that 10-K or 10-Q reports are more useful than quarterly conference calls and management earnings guidance for determining buy-side analysts׳ stock recommendations. Our results also suggest that sell-side analysts add value by providing buy-side analysts with in-depth industry knowledge and access to company management.

We examine merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions in which the acquirer and the target share a common auditor. We predict that a common auditor can help merging firms reduce uncertainty throughout the acquisition process, which allows managers to more efficiently allocate their capital, resulting in higher quality M&As. Consistent with our prediction, we find that deals with common auditors have higher acquisition announcement returns than do non-common-auditor deals. Further, we find that the common-auditor effect is more pronounced for deals with greater pre-acquisition uncertainty and deals involving acquirers and targets that are audited by the same local office of the common auditor. We also find that there is an increased probability of an M&A for firms with a common auditor. Collectively, our evidence suggests that common auditors act as information intermediaries for merging firms, resulting in higher quality acquisitions.

Sales decreases affect earnings more than sales increases because of cost stickiness. We hypothesize that this correlated omitted variable constitutes a confounding effect in standard asymmetric timeliness models. Controlling for a piecewise linear effect of sales changes in these models decreases the measured asymmetric timeliness significantly and changes inferences about the average level of conservatism and the extent of cross-sectional variation in conservatism. Validation tests confirm that the asymmetry for sales changes is consistent with sticky costs and is distinct from conditional conservatism. Future empirical research on conditional conservatism should recognize the potential confounding effect of sticky costs.