The effect of audit quality on analyst following

Abstract

Analysts’ behavior is important, because they play a significant role in the capital market. Prior studies already show the effects of firm characteristics on analysts’ behavior, however, there was a lack of research analyzing the effects of audits on financial analysts’ behavior. Therefore, I examine the effect of audit quality on analyst following that is one of the most popular analysts’ behaviors. Higher quality audit makes the users of the financial reports more reliable, thus, this reliability makes analysts easier and more accurate to forecast earnings of that firm, then analysts are more likely to follow this firm. Using two different audit quality measures, results indicate that firms receiving high-quality audit services have more analyst following than others. These results show that audit quality is also one of the determinants of analyst following behavior.

Keywords

• audit quality
• analyst following
• industry specialist auditors