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Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 39 No. 1 2005

Investor learning about analyst predictive ability

Qi Chen1; Jennifer Francis1; Wei Jiang2

1 Duke University · 2 Columbia University

Abstract

Bayesian learning implies decreasing weights on prior beliefs and increasing weights on the accuracy of the analyst's past forecast record, as the number of forecast errors comprising her forecast record (its length) increases. Consistent with this model of investor learning, empirical tests show that investors’ reactions to forecast news are increasing in the product of the accuracy and length of analysts’ forecast records. Moreover, the Bayesian learning predicted by our model is more descriptive of investor reactions than is a static model which predicts that investors’ responses condition only on the prior accuracy of the analyst.

DOI
10.1016/j.jacceco.2004.01.002
Volume
39
Issue
1
Pages
3-24
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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