IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jaecon/v77y2024i1s0165410123000411.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

MiFID II unbundling and sell-side analyst research

Author

Listed:
  • Lang, Mark
  • Pinto, Jedson
  • Sul, Edward

Abstract

We examine broad effects of MiFID II, which mandated unbundled pricing of analyst research in the European Union beginning in 2018. We find significant reductions in sell-side analyst following, particularly for firms for which the marginal analyst was less important (larger, older, less volatile firms with greater coverage and more accurate forecasts). High quality analysts (more accurate, experienced, and in positions of seniority) were more likely to leave the sell-side and move to the buy-side, while remaining sell-side analysts increased efforts to make their forecasts more informative (more accurate, more detailed, and more likely to include informative recommendations resulting in larger stock price responses). Firms responded to a loss of sell-side coverage with more frequent, forward-looking, and informative investor relations events, especially for firms that lost the most coverage. Our results support recent theoretical analysis predicting that unbundling had significant implications for sell-side research, buy-side research, and firm responses.

Suggested Citation

  • Lang, Mark & Pinto, Jedson & Sul, Edward, 2024. "MiFID II unbundling and sell-side analyst research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:77:y:2024:i:1:s0165410123000411
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jacceco.2023.101617
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165410123000411
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jacceco.2023.101617?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    2. Edelen, Roger M. & Evans, Richard B. & Kadlec, Gregory B., 2012. "Disclosure and agency conflict: Evidence from mutual fund commission bundling," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 308-326.
    3. Admati, Anat R & Pfleiderer, Paul, 1997. "Does It All Add Up? Benchmarks and the Compensation of Active Portfolio Managers," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(3), pages 323-350, July.
    4. Jarrell, Gregg A, 1984. "Change at the Exchange: The Causes and Effects of Deregulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(2), pages 273-312, October.
    5. Bryan Kelly & Alexander Ljungqvist, 2012. "Testing Asymmetric-Information Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(5), pages 1366-1413.
    6. Francis, J & Soffer, L, 1997. "The relative informativeness of analysts' stock recommendations and earnings forecast revisions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 193-211.
    7. Johann, Thomas & Putnins, Talis & Sagade, Satchit & Westheide, Christian, 2019. "Quasi-dark trading: The effects of banning dark pools in a world of many alternatives," SAFE Working Paper Series 253, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    8. Bhushan, Ravi, 1989. "Firm characteristics and analyst following," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2-3), pages 255-274, July.
    9. Harrison Hong & Marcin Kacperczyk, 2010. "Competition and Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1683-1725.
    10. Kenneth Merkley & Roni Michaely & Joseph Pacelli, 2017. "Does the Scope of the Sell-Side Analyst Industry Matter? An Examination of Bias, Accuracy, and Information Content of Analyst Reports," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(3), pages 1285-1334, June.
    11. Frankel, Richard & Kothari, S.P. & Weber, Joseph, 2006. "Determinants of the informativeness of analyst research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 29-54, April.
    12. Guo, Yifeng & Mota, Lira, 2021. "Should information be sold separately? Evidence from MiFID II," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 97-126.
    13. Bingxu Fang & Ole-Kristian Hope & Zhongwei Huang & Rucsandra Moldovan, 2020. "The effects of MiFID II on sell-side analysts, buy-side analysts, and firms," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 855-902, September.
    14. Feng Li, 2010. "The Information Content of Forward‐Looking Statements in Corporate Filings—A Naïve Bayesian Machine Learning Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(5), pages 1049-1102, December.
    15. Livio Stracca, 2006. "Delegated Portfolio Management: A Survey Of The Theoretical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(5), pages 823-848, December.
    16. Yuyan Guan & Congcong Li & Hai Lu & M. H. Franco Wong, 2019. "Regulations and Brain Drain: Evidence from Wall Street Star Analysts’ Career Choices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(12), pages 5766-5784, December.
    17. Corwin, Shane A. & Larocque, Stephannie A. & Stegemoller, Mike A., 2017. "Investment banking relationships and analyst affiliation bias: The impact of the global settlement on sanctioned and non-sanctioned banks," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 614-631.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bingxu Fang & Ole-Kristian Hope & Zhongwei Huang & Rucsandra Moldovan, 2020. "The effects of MiFID II on sell-side analysts, buy-side analysts, and firms," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 855-902, September.
    2. Guo, Yifeng & Mota, Lira, 2021. "Should information be sold separately? Evidence from MiFID II," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 97-126.
    3. Zhongwei Huang & Thomas Jeanjean & Daphne Lui, 2023. "Analyst independence and earnings management," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3-4), pages 598-621, March.
    4. Jin, Han & Mazouz, Khelifa & Wu, Yuliang & Xu, Bin, 2023. "Can star analysts make superior coverage decisions in poor information environment?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    5. Anselmi, Giulio & Petrella, Giovanni, 2021. "Regulation and stock market quality: The impact of MiFID II provision on research unbundling," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Briana Chang & Harrison Hong, 2017. "Assignment of Stock Market Coverage," NBER Working Papers 23115, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Kim, Karam & Ryu, Doojin & Yu, Jinyoung, 2024. "Star analyst activities and stock price synchronicity: Korean equity market reforms," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    8. Merkley, Kenneth & Michaely, Roni & Pacelli, Joseph, 2020. "Cultural diversity on Wall Street: Evidence from consensus earnings forecasts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1).
    9. He, Jie (Jack) & Tian, Xuan, 2013. "The dark side of analyst coverage: The case of innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 856-878.
    10. To, Thomas Y. & Navone, Marco & Wu, Eliza, 2018. "Analyst coverage and the quality of corporate investment decisions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 164-181.
    11. Nicholas Guest & Jaewoo Kim, 2024. "The media response to a loss of analyst coverage," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 3752-3787, December.
    12. P. Barrett Wheeler, 2021. "Unrecognized Expected Credit Losses and Bank Share Prices," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 805-866, June.
    13. Galanti, Sébastien & Leroy, Aurélien & Vaubourg, Anne-Gaël, 2022. "Investment and access to external finance in Europe: Does analyst coverage matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Theodore E. Christensen & Enrique Gomez & Matthew Ma & Jing Pan, 2021. "Analysts’ role in shaping non-GAAP reporting: evidence from a natural experiment," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 172-217, March.
    15. Pacelli, Joseph, 2019. "Corporate culture and analyst catering⁎," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 120-143.
    16. Francis, Bill & Hasan, Iftekhar & Liu, Liuling & Wu, Qiang & Zhao, Yijiang, 2021. "Financial analysts' career concerns and the cost of private debt," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    17. Dmitry Bazhutov & André Betzer & Francois Brochet & Markus Doumet & Peter Limbach, 2023. "The Supply and Effectiveness of Investor Relations in Insider- vs. Outsider-Oriented Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 660-683, January.
    18. Lee, Charles M.C. & So, Eric C., 2017. "Uncovering expected returns: Information in analyst coverage proxies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 331-348.
    19. Marcet, Francisco, 2017. "Analyst coverage network and stock return comovement in emerging markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1-27.
    20. Nicholas Hallman & John S. Howe & Wei Wang, 2023. "Analyst coverage and syndicated lending," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 1531-1569, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    MiFID II; Sponsored research; Sell-side analysts; Buy-side analysts; Investor relations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G29 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Other
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jaecon:v:77:y:2024:i:1:s0165410123000411. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jae .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.