Abstract
We reveal the reporting quality channel by investigating the mediating role of financial reporting quality (FRQ) in the relationship between product market competition (PMC) and analysts' forecast quality (AFQ). We analyze a sample of 1179 unique nonfinancial Chinese listed firms, resulting in 6074 firm-year observations, over the period 2007–2016. We employ the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) to measure PMC, the modified Jones model to measure FRQ, and analysts' forecast dispersion and accuracy as measures of AFQ. We then apply a three-step mediation model following the Baron and Kenny approach to test our proposed hypotheses. The results of the mediation model support our hypotheses by revealing the mediating role of FRQ in the PMC-AFQ relationship. The results suggest that intense PMC enhances the FRQ of Chinese-listed firms, in turn enhancing AFQ. Our findings present important implications for both current and potential investors, financial analysts, and relevant government regulatory bodies.
1. Introduction
Financial analysts are an integral part of the capital market and provide information that is useful in decision-making, such as buy/sell recommendations for market participants, including but not limited to brokers, individual investors, and institutional investors (Brown et al., 2015; Lang & Lundholm, 1996). They develop their forecasts mainly from information disclosed by the firm in the form of interim reports, annual reports, interviews with firm executives, formal presentations by executives, and management forecasts (Knutson, 1992; Lang & Lundholm, 1996; Lees, 1981). Financial analysts are the most influential users of a firm's financial reports, as their forecasts represent market expectations of a firm's financial performance and therefore serve as a key information intermediaries (Yu, 2010). Accounting and finance researchers have long since shown great interest in learning about how the accounting numbers are used by financial analysts (Schipper, 1991). Furthermore, these researchers document that investors around the globe incorporate the earnings' forecasts provided by financial analysts into their firm valuation models (Capstaff et al., 2001). In other words, financial analysts' forecasts influence investors' decisions on the allocation of financial resources in the capital market (Almeida and Dalmacio, 2015) and, ultimately, market efficiency. Therefore, identifying the important factors that influence the quality of financial analysts' earnings' forecasts is of great interest.
