Analyst workload and information production: Evidence from IPO assignments

Abstract

Abstract I examine how changes in analysts' workloads affect their information production. Examining determinants of analysts' information production is important because analyst research affects stock prices and capital allocation decisions. Using periods when analysts work on IPOs to proxy for shocks to their workloads, I predict and find that the accuracy, quantity, and timeliness of analysts' forecasts for non‐IPO firms decline when they are working on IPOs, and they herd closer to the consensus. The reductions in research quality are larger for less experienced analysts, larger IPOs, and less important portfolio firms. Last, I predict and find that information asymmetry increases for non‐IPO firms covered by analysts who are working on IPOs, consistent with analysts' reduction in research quality during IPO assignments negatively affecting the information environment of non‐IPO firms. In sum, I provide the first evidence that analysts' work on IPO deals imposes negative externalities on both the quality of research they produce for the non‐IPO firms they cover and the information environments of these firms, highlighting at least one reason why analyst workload is important to firms and investors.

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