Concluding remarks

Abstract

Analysts’ earnings forecasts are an important element in the capital market. Investors use analysts’ forecasts as a basis for their investment decisions and accounting researchers employ earnings forecasts in their models to proxy for the market’s earnings expectations. Thus, investors as well as researchers seek to identify accurate forecasts to raise their expected returns or improve their models. Accordingly, the accounting literature provides great insights into analysts’ forecasts and conducts empirical studies to identify characteristics that help finding accurate analysts; i.e. the literature provides determinants of analysts’ earnings forecast accuracy. These determinants comprise e.g. an analyst’s prior performance, her reputation and experience or the size of her employer.