It has generally been assumed that the potential commission revenue is an important determinant of a sell-side analyst's decision of what firms to cover and what information to publicly release. However, because stock volume has not been disaggregated on a brokerage-firm level, uncertainty remains regarding the economic importance of the relation between analyst coverage and brokerage-firm volume. Using a unique data set that identifies the broker(s) involved in each trade, I find that brokerage volume is significantly higher in covered stocks than in uncovered stocks. On average, brokers increase their market share in covered stocks by 3.8% relative to uncovered stocks.

International differences in the demand for accounting income predictably affect the way it incorporates economic income (change in market value) over time. We characterize the `shareholder’ and `stakeholder’ corporate governance models of common and code law countries respectively as resolving information asymmetry by public disclosure and private communication. Also, code law directly links accounting income to current payouts (to employees, managers, shareholders and governments). Consequently, code law accounting income is less timely, particularly in incorporating economic losses. Regulation, taxation and litigation cause variation among common law countries. The results have implications for security analysts, standard-setters, regulators, and corporate governance.