阅读|分析师对公司投资行为评级的乐观倾向：取悦管理层还是关联关系的利益冲突？

How Analyst Recommendations Respond to Corporate Uncertainty Caused by Investment Behavior: Currying Favor with Management or Conflicts of Interest from Connections

分析师对公司投资行为评级的乐观倾向：取悦管理层还是关联关系的利益冲突？

Longwen Zhang
International School of Business and Finance, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, and
Minghai Wei
Center for Accounting, Finance and Institutions, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

Citation:

Kyissima, K.H., Xue, G.Z., Yapatake Kossele, T.P. and Abeid, A.R. (2019), "Analysis of capital structure stability of listed firms in China", China Finance Review International, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 213-228. https://doi.org/10.1108/CFRI-05-2018-0044

摘要

公司投资行为增加了公司经营和业绩的不确定性，本文研究了在因投资诱发更大不确定性条件下分析师的评级倾向及其动机。研究发现：公司总体投资水平、研发投入和并购行为与分析师评级显著正相关，意味着分析师对公司投资行为存在乐观倾向，这种乐观倾向仅存在于信息透明度低的公司。我们进一步发现评级越高的分析师发布的研究报告越多，而发布报告越多的分析师盈余预测的准确度越高，这说明分析师通过发布乐观的评级取悦管理层获得私人信息，提高了盈余预测的准确性，支持分析师取悦管理层获取私人信息假说。本文分别根据承销关联、自营关联和基金关联三种关联关系对分析师进行分组，实证发现公司总体投资水平、研发投入和并购行为与分析师评级显著正相关的关系仅存在于没有关联关系的组别，这一结果不支持关联关系利益冲突假说。

Purpose

Corporate investment behavior increases the uncertainty of a company’s operation and performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how analyst recommendations respond to corporate uncertainty caused by investment behavior and what motivates analysts to react as they do.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors test two motivation hypotheses: the hypothesis that analysts are currying favor with management to obtain private information and the hypothesis that analysts have conflicts of interest due to connections. Using Chinese analyst-level data from 2007 to 2015, the authors find that overall investment levels, R&D investment and M&A events are significantly positively correlated with analyst recommendations, suggesting that analysts tend to react optimistically to corporate investment behavior.

Findings

Analysts are only optimistic about companies with low information transparency, suggesting that analysts may be trying to curry favor with management to gain access to private information. The authors find that analysts with stronger recommendations have more private information and analysts with more private information publish more accurate earnings forecasts, which supports the hypothesis that analysts curry favor with management through optimistic recommendations to obtain more private information. This is consistent with the logic that the difficulty of earnings forecasting increases under uncertain conditions, increasing the demand for private information. The authors then group the analysts according to their underwriting connections, securities company’s proprietary connections and fund connections, and find that the positive correlation between corporate investment behavior and analyst recommendations exists only in the unconnected groups. This is evidence against the hypothesis that analysts have conflicts of interest due to their connections.

Originality/value

First, the authors link the optimism of analysts with the uncertainty of analysts’ information inputs to partially unpack the black box of analysts’ analyses. Second, the authors test the two hypotheses mentioned. There is a lack of comparative studies on the influence of different motivations on the behavior of analysts.

文章结构

1. Introduction

2. Institutional background

3. Literature review

   3.1 Literature on analysts’ information inputs

   3.2 Literature on the role of analysts

   3.3 Literature on conflicts of interest and analysts’ optimistic

4. Hypothesis development

   H1a. Holding other conditions fixed, analyst recommendations are higher for companies with a higher overall investment level, those with a higher R&D level and those with a recent M &A event.
   H1b. H1a holds only for companies with low information transparency.

   H2a. Holding other conditions fixed, analysts with higher recommendations release more reports.
   H2b. Holding other conditions fixed, analysts who release more reports have more accurate earnings forecasts.

   H3a. The positive correlation in H1a exists only for analysts without an underwriting connection.
   H3b. The positive correlation in H1a exists only for analysts without a proprietary connection.
   H3c. The positive correlation in H1a exists only for analysts without a fund connection.
   

5. Research design

   5.1 Sample selection and data sources

   5.2 Variables and research models

   5.3 Descriptive statistics

6. Results

   6.1 Results for H1

   6.2 Results for H2

   6.3 Results for H3

7. Further research and robustness testing

   7.1 Corporate investment behavior and analyst following

   7.2 Analysts’ optimism to corporate investment behavior and the overvaluation of stock prices

   7.3 Robustness test

8. Conclusion

研究成果

Investment and profit of listed companies in China

The operating income and composition of Chinese securities companies for the period from 2012 to 2016

The type and annual distribution of analysts’ recommendations

Descriptive statistics of the main variables

Relationship between corporate investment behavior and analyst recommendation

The impact of transparency on the relationship between corporate investment behavior and analyst recommendation

Relationship between analyst recommendations and the number of reports released by analysts

Relationship between the number of reports released by analysts and the accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts

Relationship between overall investment level and analyst recommendations grouped by connections

Relationship between R&D level and analyst recommendations grouped by connections

Relationship between M&A behavior and analyst recommendations grouped by connections

Relationship between corporate investment behavior and analysts coverage

Analysts’ optimism about corporate investment behavior and the overvaluation of stock prices

Relationship between analyst recommendations and the relative number of reports released by analysts

Relationship between the relative number of reports released by analysts and the accuracy of analysts’ earnings forecasts

作者简介

张龙文，管理学博士，中山大学国际金融学院教师、科研博士后。主要研究方向为会计信息与资本市场。

魏明海，会计学博士，中山大学管理学院教授、博士生导师。主要从事投资者保护、财务与投资、公司治理和盈余管理等领域的研究。

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