Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2005

Abstract

This paper critically evaluates the use of analysts forecasts in accounting-based valuation. Specifically, I assess the usefulness and the limitation of analysts forecasts in predicting future earnings and in explaining the market-to-book ratio, in light of a comprehensive set of 22 explicit information items, including: economic rent proxies, conservative accounting proxies, earnings quality signals, transitory earnings proxies, industry characteristics, and risk and growth proxies. While analysts forecasts capture 45–83% of the information from these sources depending on model specifications, they do not appear to fully incorporate certain information items. In particular, proxies for conservative accounting and transitory earnings are incrementally useful in predicting future earnings; proxies for economic rents, conservative accounting, and risk are incrementally useful in explaining the market-to-book ratio. Collectively, these results validate the use of analysts forecasts as a parsimonious proxy for forward-looking information in accounting-based valuation and suggest how to improve on their use.

Keywords

accounting-based valuation, earnings, analysts forecasts, market-to-book ratios

Discipline

Accounting | Corporate Finance

Research Areas

Financial Performance Analysis

Publication

Review of Accounting Studies

Volume

10

Issue

1

First Page

5

Last Page

31

ISSN

1380-6653

Identifier

10.1007/s11142-004-6338-4

Publisher

Springer

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