management earnings forecasts and value of analyst forecast revisions this study examines the stock price reactions to analyst forecast revisions around earnings announcements to test whether preannouncement forecasts reflect analysts private information or piggybacking on confounding events and news we find that management earnings forecasts influence the timing and precision of analyst forecasts more importantly evidence suggests that prior studies finding of weaker stronger stock price responses to forecast revisions in the period immediately after before the prior quarter earnings announcement disappears once management earnings forecasts are controlled for to the extent that management earnings forecasts are public disclosures our results suggest that the importance of analysts information discovery role documented in prior studies is likely to be overstated this paper was accepted by wei jiang finance

analyst responsiveness and the post earnings announcement drift abstract this study examines the responsiveness of analyst forecasts to current earnings announcements the results show considerable cross sectional variation in analyst responsiveness and suggest that this variation is related to the costs and benefits associated with prompt forecast revisions more importantly this study finds that with responsive forecast revisions more of the market reaction takes place in the event window and less in the drift window suggesting that analyst responsiveness mitigates the post earnings announcement drift and facilitates market efficiency

security analyst superiority relative to univariate time series models in forecasting quarterly earnings abstract this paper provides evidence of security analyst sa superiority relative to univariate time series ts models in predicting firms quarterly earnings numbers and shows that sa forecast superiority in our sample is attributable to 1 better utilization of information existing on the date that ts model forecasts can be initiated a contemporaneous advantage and 2 use of information acquired between the date of initiation of ts model forecasts and the date when sa forecasts are published a timing advantage

spatial interactions in multiple use forestry and substitution and wealth effects for the single stand abstract forestry models often ignore spatial relationships between forest stands this paper isolates the effects of stand interactions in multiple use forestry through a straightforward extension of the single stand model effects of stand interactions decompose into wealth and substitution effects and may cause time varying patterns of resource use for a forest stand simulations illustrate that a stand s role even in steady state may alternate an emphasis on timber with an emphasis on nontimber optimal management plans differ substantially depending on whether the manager values nonmarket goods from neighboring stands the model offers insights for improving heuristic forest level optimization models in current usage

energy from sugarcane bagasse under electricity rationing in brazil a computable general equilibrium model in the midst of the institutional reforms of the brazilian electric sectors initiated in the 1990s a serious electricity shortage crisis developed in 2001 as an alternative to blackout the government instituted an emergency plan aimed at reducing electricity consumption from june 2001 to february 2002 brazilians were compelled to curtail electricity use by 20 since the late 1990s but especially after the electricity crisis energy policy in brazil has been directed towards increasing thermoelectricity supply and promoting further gains in energy conservation two main issues are addressed here firstly we estimate the economic impacts of constraining the supply of electric energy in brazil secondly we investigate the possible penetration of electricity generated from sugarcane bagasse a computable general equilibrium cge model is used the traditional sector of electricity and the remainder of the economy are characterized by a stylized top down representation as nested ces constant elasticity of substitution production functions the electricity production from sugarcane bagasse is described through a bottom up activity analysis with a detailed representation of the required inputs based on engineering studies the model constructed is used to study the effects of the electricity shortage in the preexisting sector through prices production and income changes it is shown that installing capacity to generate electricity surpluses by the sugarcane agroindustrial system could ease the economic impacts of an electric energy shortage crisis on the gross domestic product gdp

bundled forecasts in empirical accounting research abstract this paper examines bundled forecasts or management earnings forecasts issued concurrently with earnings announcements which have evolved to become the most common type of management forecast we describe the econometric problems associated with measuring bundled forecast news and in particular provide evidence that the measurement error in the traditional calculation of forecast news is material and is systematically associated with variables frequently studied in forecast related research we illustrate an application of conditional expectations to overcome these problems finally we offer guidance and caveats to researchers considering the use of this method in the future

the impact of replacement cost disclosure on security prices new evidence abstract a number of studies have tested for information content in the asr 190 disclosure by comparing the conditional and unconditional distribution of abnormal security returns around the time of disclosure since no differences were observed it was concluded that asr 190 had no information content the study reported below performs a similar test by estimating the regression function of the conditional distribution of abnormal returns this test procedure controls for the information content in contemporaneous historical cost disclosure and uses a conditioning variable not considered in earlier tests it finds statistically significant stock price effects however because most of the effects appear to precede the official announcement date by several months it is unclear whether stock prices were responding to the leakage of the information content of asr 190 prior to disclosure to private production of information contained in asr 190 or to a variable omitted from the study which happens to be correlated with replacement costs

conditioning the return generating process on firm specific events a discussion of event study methods empirical investigations into the codetermination of security prices and eco nomic events are called event studies there are several ways of estimating the codetermination of interest since fama fisher jensen and roll 8 it has been general practice to first translate variables into rates of return then net out gen eral market movements and finally examine the relationship between residual returns and events the methodology in all of its variants fails under the rubric of 4 residual analysis empirical methods used in residual analysis deviate from the structure and terminology generally found in classical econometrics while this is not a criticism of residual analysis it results in a communication problem that is more than simply pedantic in nature a broad body of econometric literature dealing with parameter estimation statistical inference and hypothesis testing often goes untapped by empiricists in finance who within internally consistent sets of as sumptions have created a separate body of statistical methods in this paper a union of the two disciplines is advocated to provide a forum for comparing and contrasting alternative empirical methods the event study problem is broken down into three phases the parameterization of informa tion arrival applicable to the problem an examination ofthe relationship between parameters in the information arrival process and the estimates resulting from alternative estimation methods and aggregation across firms experiencing simi

decomposition of co2 emissions change from energy consumption in brazil challenges and policy implications this study evaluates the changes in co2 emissions from energy consumption in brazil for the period 1970 2009 emissions are decomposed into production and consumption activities allowing computing the full set of energy sources consumed in the country this study aims to develop a comprehensive and updated picture of the underlying determinants of emissions change from energy consumption in brazil along the last four decades including for the first time the recently released data for 2009 results demonstrate that economic activity and demographic pressure are the leading forces explaining emission increase on the other hand carbon intensity reductions and diversification of energy mix towards cleaner sources are the main factors contributing to emission mitigation which are also the driving factors responsible for the observed decoupling between co2 emissions and economic growth after 2004 the cyclical patterns of energy intensity and economy structure are associated to both increments and mitigation on total emission change depending on the interval the evidences demonstrate that brazilian efforts to reduce emissions are concentrated on energy mix diversification and carbon intensity control while technology intensive alternatives like energy intensity has not demonstrated relevant progress residential sector displays a marginal weight in the total emission change

evidence on the effect of bond covenants and management compensation contracts on the choice of accounting techniques the case of the depreciation switch back abstract provisions of bond indenture agreements and management compensation contracts are examined to derive testable implications concerning management s incentives to choose among alternative accounting techniques the hypotheses are subjected to empirical examination by investigating the voluntary change from accelerated to straight line depreciation for financial reporting purposes only the methodology utilized incorporates an expectations model of accounting earnings in an attempt to separate out of the effects of earnings announcements from accounting change announcements which are often concurrent the evidence from both price and non price data is not consistent with the general hypothesis that bond covenants and management compensation contracts are important determinants of the decision to change depreciation techniques five potential explanations for the results are offered

payment for multiple forest benefits alters the effect of tree disease on optimal forest rotation length forests deliver multiple benefits both to their owners and to wider society however a wave of forest pests and pathogens is threatening this worldwide in this paper we examine the effect of disease on the optimal rotation length of a single aged single rotation forest when a payment for non timber benefits which is offered to private forest owners to partly internalise the social values of forest management is included using a generalisable bioeconomic framework we show how this payment counteracts the negative economic effect of disease by increasing the optimal rotation length and under some restrictive conditions even makes it optimal to never harvest the forest the analysis shows a range of complex interactions between factors including the rate of spread of infection and the impact of disease on the value of harvested timber and non timber benefits a key result is that the effect of disease on the optimal rotation length is dependent on whether the disease affects the timber benefit only compared to when it affects both timber and non timber benefits our framework can be extended to incorporate multiple ecosystem services delivered by forests and details of how disease can affect their production thus facilitating a wide range of applications

analyst characteristics timing of forecast revisions and analyst forecasting ability abstract we first examine whether analysts with certain characteristics that prior research has identified are related to superior forecasting ability systematically time their forecast revisions later in the fiscal quarter we then examine whether this superior ability persists after controlling for the timing advantage by using relative forecast error a measure that largely eliminates the timing advantage of recent forecasts using a sample of quarterly earnings forecast revisions over the 20 year period from 1990 to 2009 we find that analysts with more firm specific and general experience and more accurate prior period forecasts analysts employed by larger brokerage firms and analysts who follow fewer industries and companies tend to revise forecasts later in the quarter we also find that analyst characteristics that are positively correlated with revision timing are negatively related to relative forecast errors these results are consistent with analyst characteristics being useful proxies for analyst forecasting ability and analysts with greater ability revising forecasts later in the quarter

the alcohol program the rational for the launching of the alcohol program from sugarcane in brazil in the mid 1970 s is described as an answer to the first oil crisis as well as a solution to the problem of the fluctuating sugar prices in the international market the technical characteristics of ethanol as a fuel are given as well as a discussion of the evolution of the cost of production environmental and social consequences regarding costs ethanol production was close to 100 dollars a barrel in the initial stages of the program in 1980 falling rapidly due to economies of scale and technological progress to half that value in 1990 followed by a slower decline in recent years considering the hard currency saved by avoiding oil importation through the significant displacement of gasoline by ethanol and the decrease in the amount of external debt that the displaced oil importation was able to provide it is possible to demonstrate that the alcohol program has been an efficient way of exchanging dollar debt by national currency subsidies which are paid by the liquid fossil fuel users even with this economic gains for society the continuity of the program is difficult to maintain two solutions to this problem are discussed internal expansion of the use of ethanol and exports to industrialized countries where it could be used as an octane enhancer the main attractiveness of the program the reduction of co2 emissions as compared to fossil fuels is stressed mainly as a solution for industrialized countries to fulfill their commitments with the united nations framework climate change convention

the regional economic impacts of biofuels a review of multisectoral modelling techniques and evaluation of applications allan g j the regional economic impacts of biofuels a review of multisectoral modelling techniques and evaluation of applications regional studies the regional economic impact of biofuel production depends upon a number of interrelated factors the specific biofuels feedstock and production technology employed the sector s embeddedness in the rest of the economy through its demand for local resources and the extent to which new activity is created these issues can be analysed using multisectoral economic models some studies use input output io and social accounting matrix sam modelling frameworks whilst a nascent computable general equilibrium cge literature has begun to examine the regional impact of biofuel development this paper reviews compares and evaluates these approaches for modelling the regional economic impacts of biofuels

energy intensity trend explained for sao paulo state abstract a sectorial analysis and a logarithmic mean divisia index lmdi technique are used in this paper to decompose the energy intensity of the state of sao paulo from 1995 to 2012 into the economic activity effect and the energy efficiency effect this study contributes the following observations 1 the world energy intensity has decreased steadily but the energy intensity of the sao paulo state has been volatile and has declined 2 3 since 1995 2 in the period of study declining energy intensity of the primary and tertiary sectors was observed in contrast the energy intensity of the secondary sector has been gradually increasing 3 the energy efficiency effect was the primary driver of energy intensity change through 2007 and the economic activity effect subsequently had an increasingly more important role in the change 4 the economic structure remained constant until 2004 when the services sector shift became more significant it is hypothesized that the increasing energy intensity from 2005 to 2009 was caused by the growth of inefficient sugarcane bagasse consumption

cross sectional association between abnormal returns and firm specific variables abstract abnormal returns market model prediction errors are the subject of many event studies in accounting and finance literature conditional on the event of interest researchers have recently used cross sectional regressions to examine relations between abnormal returns and firm specific variables this paper demostrates that non constant variences and covariances in market model residuals across firms introduced bias in the estimated slope coefficients of the independent variables i e the expected signs of the estimated slope coefficients can be predicted a priori a method is develope to removed the bias in the estimated slope coefficiets and is found to be effective this method explicitly takes the dependence among abnormal returns across firms into account methods that assume abnormal returns across firms to be independent do not control for such bias

a more general dynamic economic model of the optimal rotation of multiple use forests abstract a deterministic optimal control model is presented for a multiple use forest with specific consideration given to provision and maintenance costs associated with a flow of nontimber values a relatively simple relationship is found which determines the optimal rotation length for such a forest

do weather induced moods affect the processing of earnings news we investigate whether unpleasant environmental conditions affect stock market participants responses to information events we draw from psychology research to develop a new prediction that weather induced negative moods reduce market participants activity levels exploiting geographic variation in equity analysts locations we find compelling evidence that analysts experiencing unpleasant weather are slower or less likely to respond to an earnings announcement relative to analysts responding to the same announcement but experiencing pleasant weather price association tests find evidence consistent with reduced activity due to weather induced moods delaying equilibrium price adjustments following earnings announcements we also use our analyst based research design to re examine an existing prediction that unpleasant weather induces investor pessimism and find evidence of both analyst pessimism and reduced activity in the presence of unpleasant weather together our study provides new evidence that both extends and reaffirms findings of a relation between unpleasant weather and market activities and contributes to the broader psychology and economics literature on the impact of weather induced mood on labor productivity this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

the timing and value of forecast and recommendation revisions abstract this paper evaluates the information content of analysts one quarter ahead earnings forecast revisions and recommendation revisions at various points in event time relative to earnings announcement dates across three sets of tests we find that the revisions are least informative in the week after earnings announcements and that the information content of revisions generally increases over event time we find a sharp increase in the information content of upward forecast revisions and recommendation upgrades in the week before earnings announcements but we do not find a similar increase for downward revisions or for recommendation downgrades

the timing of and incentives for annual earnings forecasts near interim earnings announcements abstract security analysts anticipate and respond to interim earnings announcements when they revise their annual earnings forecasts analysts avoid revising for two weeks before an interim announcement and more frequently revise immediately after an announcement as expected revision activity after an interim announcement is greater if absolute unexpected interim earnings are larger if there are more competing analysts and if unexpected interim earnings are negative unexpectedly analysts are reluctant to revise their forecasts early in the fiscal year these findings carry implications for research designs that use analyst forecasts

the informational role of bond analysts this study uses a large sample of sell side bond analysts reports to examine the properties of recommendations provided by bond analysts and the impact of these recommendations on bond securities first we document that the distribution of bond analysts buy hold and sell recommendations is skewed positively but less so than the distribution of equity analysts recommendations the positive skewness in bond analysts recommendations is greater for

insider trading earnings changes and stock prices this study empirically examines the relation between reportable insider trading and the information captured by annual unexpected earnings for a large sample of firms spanning a ten year period 1978 87 each observation is assigned to one of four groups based on the direction of net insider trading buy sell and the sign of unexpected earnings for each of these groups 15 month cumulative abnormal returns are regressed on annual unexpected earnings the slope coefficient is the largest for the group where insiders are net purchasers and the sign of unexpected earnings is positive this is consistent with an inference that insider buying interactively confirms the favorable information captured by positive unexpected earnings and this interaction reduces the noise in unexpected earnings the result with regard to the unfavorable information captured by the group with insider selling and negative unexpected earnings is similar but less pronounced the analysis also suggests that insider trading conveys information not fully captured by the year s earnings

reputation and performance among security analysts members of the institutional investor all american research team supply more accurate earnings forecasts than other analysts when forecasts are matched by the corporation followed and by the date of brokerage house issuance this contemporaneous advantage is complemented by a timing advantage all americans supply forecasts more often than other analysts stocks returns immediately following large upward forecast revisions suggest that all americans impact prices more than other analysts however there is virtually no difference in returns following large downward revisions nevertheless the collective results suggest a positive relation between reputation and performance and assuming that all americans are better paid pay and performance

an approach to statistical inference in cross sectional models with security abnormal returns as dependent variable several recent event studies test hypotheses about the association between event related abnormal security returns and firm characteristics using a three step procedure first forecast model parameters are estimated usually parameters of a market model second prediction errors or residuals are computed over an event period third prediction errors are regressed cross sectionally on firm characteristics hypothesized to influence the impact of the event on share values results of these regressions are used to draw inferences about the relation between abnormal returns and firm characteristics researchers who employ three step procedures acknowledge that crosssectional ols regressions lead to valid inferences if the disturbances are iid normal in cross section see for example leftwich 1981 p 23 and lustgarten 1982 p 138 while sufficient assumptions to draw valid inferences from ols regressions are clear these assumptions are violated if there is cross correlation and cross sectional heteroscedasticity in the firm return processes from which the prediction errors are estimated assumptions about the processes generating these prediction

differential interpretations and trading volume this study provides evidence that differential interpretations are an important stimulus for speculative trading we measure differential interpretations using data on analysts revisions of forecasts of annual earnings after the announcement of quarterly earnings that are components of those annual earnings numbers we find two conditions under which differential interpretations play a significant role in explaining trading first we present empirical evidence supporting kandel and pearson s 1995 argument that trading coincident with small price changes reflects investors differential interpretations of information this evidence is important because it is inconsistent with conventional models of trade that assume homogeneous interpretations second we also find that differential interpre tations explain a significant amount of the trading occurring in a sample where trading volume is higher than the firm specific non announcement period average this result is consistent with informed traders acting on their differential interpretations when there is enough liquidity trading to help camouflage their own information based trades in sum the study s results confirm bachelier s 1900 intuition that differential interpretations are an important stimulus for trading

the effects of disease on optimal forest rotation a generalisable analytical framework the arrival of novel pathogens and pests can have a devastating effect on the market values of forests calibrating management strategies decisions to consider the effect of disease may help to reduce disease impacts on forests here we use a novel generalisable bioeconomic model framework which combines an epidemiological compartmental model with a faustmann optimal rotation length model to explore the management decision of when to harvest a single rotation even aged plantation forest under varying disease conditions sensitivity analysis of the rate of spread of infection and the effect of disease on the timber value reveals a key trade off between waiting for the timber to grow and the infection spreading further we show that the optimal rotation length which maximises the net present value of the forest is reduced when timber from infected trees has no value but when the infection spreads quickly and the value of timber from infected trees is non zero it can be optimal to wait until the disease free optimal rotation length to harvest our original approach provides an exemplar framework showing how a bioeconomic model can be used to examine the effect of tree diseases on management strategies decisions

applied general equilibrium models for energy studies a survey the importance of energy in any economy developed or underdeveloped became clear after the first oil shock in 1973 since then different studies were carried out to formulate energy policies and to study their impact on the economies since energy policy issues are related to various aspects of the economy such as price formation output determination income generation and distribution consumption behaviour government operation etc a coherent and systematic mechanism is required for such analysis by offering such a framework of analysis age models gained popularity among energy modellers in the 1980s the environmental issues have gained importance and the focus shifted towards curbing and containing emissions of environmentally unfriendly gases resulting from the use of energy age models because of their capability to capture the complexities of the economy have found relevance in analysing the economic impacts of controlling pollution and greenhouse gases this paper surveys the literature on such general equilibrium models as applied to energy studies and reports their special features evolution through time as well as their limitations

differential intra industry information transfer associated with management earnings forecasts abstract this study proposes that the amount of information about one firm conveyed by management forecasts of another firm in the same industry depends on the earnings covariance between the two firms and the forecast firm s earnings variance the covariance reflects the competitive relation between the firms and the variance represents noise contained in forecasts when both variance and covariance are included in regressions nonforecast firms abnormal returns are associated with forecast firms abnormal returns when they are excluded no such association is observed the results are similar but much weaker when the independent variable is unexpected management forecasts