Finance Seminar Jarrad Harford

The paper introduces a novel way to identify analysts’ topic-specific expertise by studying the questions they ask in earnings conference calls. When analysts’ expertise matches the type of new information arriving, they produce more accurate forecasts, more influential recommendations, and better career outcomes.

The study also shows that analyst expertise diversity improves how prices reflect future earnings, but may reduce buy-side participation in conference calls and weaken managers’ ability to learn from prices.

Takeaway: Analyst expertise is highly topic-specific. Understanding what analysts ask about helps reveal who truly adds value when markets process complex information.