Bhushan (1989), O'Brien and Bhushan (1990) and Brennan and Hughes (1991) have identified specific firm characteristics that they find to be associated with either the level of analyst following or year-to-year changes in security analyst coverage (or both). This dissertation extends these investigations by examining additional earnings-related firm-specific variables that were found to be significantly associated with aggregate analyst coverage decisions. / Drawing upon findings reported in the "earnings response coefficient" literature, I argue that analysts have an incentive to identify and follow those firms whose time-series properties reveal historically persistent earnings innovations and less predictable earnings patterns. Two additional hypotheses first posed by King, Pownall and Waymire (1990) concerning analyst coverage were also examined within the framework of the developed model. Finally, market value was disaggregated into separate price and shares outstanding variables to investigate differential effects. / The results indicate that analysts can and do identify those firms with more persistent and less predictable earnings and concentrate research effort on these companies vis-a-vis other sample firms. The hypotheses of King et al. (1990) were also confirmed. The findings suggest that more analysts follow those firms with an earnings history that has proven informative in predicting earnings changes of industry co-members. Also, increased levels of (size-adjusted) research and development expenditures attracts analyst attention. Finally, as predicted, shares outstanding was found to be positively associated with analyst coverage while the effect of share price proved insignificant. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3584. / Major Professor: Kenneth S. Lorek. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76753 |
| Contributors | Branson, Bruce Clayton., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 162 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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