1998/10/01 by Orie E. Barron, Oliver kim, Oliver Kim +2 · 513 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Decision Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Mathematics · #Auditing, Earnings Management, Governance #Computer science #Consensus forecast #Data mining #Dispersion (optics) #Econometrics #Economics #Financial Markets and Investment Strategies #Forecast error #Forecasting Techniques and Applications #Mathematics #Measure (data warehouse) #Private information retrieval #Quality (philosophy) #Statistics
paper · open access · doi:10.2308/tar-1325287
published in The Accounting Review 73(4), 421-433 (American Accounting Association)
openalex publication_date 1998/10/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract This paper presents a model that relates properties of the analysts' information environment of the properties of their forecasts. First, we express forecast dispersion and error in the mean forecast in terms of analyst uncertainty and consensus (that is, the degree to which analysts share a common belief). Second, were reserve the relations to show how uncertainability and consensus cab be measured by combining forecast dispersion, error in the mean forecast, and the number of forecasts. Third, we show that the quality of common and private information available to analysts can be measured using these same observable variables. The relations we present are intuitive and easily applied in empirical studies.