Research On The Impact Of Voluntary Information Disclosure On Analysts’ Earnings Forecast

At this stage of the continuous development and improvement of the capital market,the deficiency of mandatory information disclosure is becoming increasingly prominent,which is reflected in its increasingly difficult to meet the increasingly comprehensive,extensive and diversified information needs of the public and investors.As an indispensable part of the information disclosure of listed companies,voluntary information disclosure plays a crucial role in strengthening the information sharing and exchange between listed companies and the public.What’s more,because the enterprise management can decide the content and form of voluntary information disclosure independently,Firms may have the tendency to release untrue and inaccurate information in order to strengthen their own interests.Securities analysts process the information of listed companies and then transmit it to investors.They are not only the supplier of information,but also the demander of information.Many researchers have proved that analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior can be notably affected by information disclosure.Based on this,this paper focuses on whether voluntary information disclosure will have an impact on the three main aspects of analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior,namely,analysts’ attention,analysts’ earnings forecasting error and analysts’ earnings forecasting divergence.On this basis,this paper discusses thoroughly whether the external environment of the company,the industry characteristics and the company’s own characteristics will regulate the impact of voluntary information disclosure on analysts’ prediction behavior.In order to achieve the research purpose,this paper firstly reviews the research literature broadly,and then expounds the impact of voluntary information disclosure on analysts’ attention,analysts’ earnings prediction error and divergence.Secondly,on the basis of theoretical analysis,this paper goes deeply into the relationship between voluntary information disclosure and the above three main aspects of analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior empirically.Finally,on this basis,this paper discusses whether the impact of voluntary information disclosure on analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior will be different under different conditions from three aspects: the company’s external environment,the concentration of the company’s industry and the company’s own characteristics.The results show that: 1,Voluntary information disclosure can positively promote analysts attention and reduce analysts’ earnings prediction error and divergence.2,The marketization process and legalization level of the external environment will weaken the impact of voluntary information disclosure on analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior.3,The industry concentration will strengthen the impact of voluntary information disclosure on analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior.4,The nature of property rights,supply chain concentration and strategic radicality can also affect the relationship between voluntary information disclosure and analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior.There are two possible innovations: firstly,the impact consequences of voluntary information disclosure are extended to analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior.The impact consequences of existing research on voluntary information disclosure are mainly concentrated on the level of companies’ economic and financial activities.But this paper goes deeply into the voluntary information disclosure’s relevance to the analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior,and further tests the information content of voluntary information disclosure.Second,it enriches the research on the influencing factors of analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior.Voluntary information includes a variety of business information.It is an important supplement and an important part of the company’s whole information disclosure.However,the existing literature does not involve the test of its information content.This paper systematically and comprehensively studies its impact on analysts’ earnings forecasting behavior from the perspectives of quantity and quality.