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Optimism bias in financial analysts' earnings forecasts: Do commissions sharing agreements reduce conflicts of interest?

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  • Sébastien Galanti

    (LEO - Laboratoire d'Économie d'Orleans [UMR7322] - UO - Université d'Orléans - UT - Université de Tours - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Anne-Gaël Vaubourg

    (CRIEF [Poitiers] - Centre de recherche sur l'intégration économique et financière - UP - Université de Poitiers = University of Poitiers)

Abstract

Implemented in May 2007, the French rules governing commission-sharing agreements (CSAs) consist of unbundling brokerage and investment research fees. The goal of this paper is to analyze the effect of these rules on analysts' forecasts. Based on a sample of one-year-ahead earnings per share forecasts for 58 French firms during the period from 1999 to 2011, we conduct panel data regressions. We show that the analysts' optimistic bias declined significantly after CSA rules, which suggests that these rules are effective at curbing the conflicts of interest between brokerage activities and financial research. Our results are robust tothe impact of the Global Settlement and the Market Abuse Directive.

Suggested Citation

  • Sébastien Galanti & Anne-Gaël Vaubourg, 2017. "Optimism bias in financial analysts' earnings forecasts: Do commissions sharing agreements reduce conflicts of interest?," Working Papers hal-01724253, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01724253
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01724253
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    Cited by:

    1. Sébastien Galanti & Anne-Gaël Vaubourg, 2020. "Unbundling financial services: The case of brokerage and investment research," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 473-484.
    2. He, Feng & Ma, Yaming, 2019. "Do political connections decrease the accuracy of stock analysts' recommendations in the Chinese stock market?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 59-72.
    3. Eugster, Nicolas & Isakov, Dušan, 2019. "Founding family ownership, stock market returns, and agency problems," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Hou, Tony Chieh-Tse & Gao, Simon, 2021. "The impact of economic freedom on financial analysts' earnings forecast: Evidence from the Asia-Pacific region," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    5. Quentin Bro de Comères, 2022. "Predicting European Banks Distress Events: Do Financial Information Producers Matter?," Working Papers hal-03752678, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Analysts; Recommendations; Stock Market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G17 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Financial Forecasting and Simulation
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation

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