Citing fear of legal liability as a partial explanation, prior research documents (1) managers' reluctance to voluntarily disclose management earnings forecasts, and (2) greater forecast disclosure frequencies in periods of bad news. We provide evidence on how management earnings forecast disclosure differs between the United States (U.S.) and Canada, two otherwise similar business environments with different legal regimes. Canadian securities laws and judicial interpretations create a far less litigious environment than exists in the U.S. We find a greater frequency of management earnings forecast disclosure in Canada relative to the U.S. Further, although U.S. managers are relatively more likely to issue forecasts during interim periods in which earnings decrease, Canadian managers do not exhibit that tendency. Instead, Canadian managers issue more forecasts when earnings are increasing, and their forecasts are of annual rather than interim earnings. Also consistent with a less litigious environment, Canadian managers issue more precise and longer-term forecasts. These findings hold after controlling for other determinants of management earnings forecast disclosure that might differ between the two countries—firm size, earnings volatility, information asymmetry, growth, capitalization rates, and membership in high-technology and regulated industries.

Managers often explain their earnings forecasts by linking forecasted performance to their internal actions and the actions of parties external to the firm. These attributions potentially aid investors in the interpretation of management forecasts by confirming known relationships between attributions and profitability or by identifying additional causes that investors should consider when forecasting earnings. We investigate why managers choose to provide attributions with their forecasts and whether the attributions are related to security price reactions to management earnings forecasts. Using a sample of 951 management earnings forecasts issued from 1993 to 1996, we find that attributions are more likely for larger firms, less likely for firms in regulated industries, less likely for forecasts issued over longer horizons, more likely for bad news forecasts, and more likely for forecasts that are maximum type. Furthermore, attributions are associated with greater absolute price reactions to management forecasts, more negative price reactions to management forecasts (forecast news held constant), and a greater price reaction per dollar of * University of Georgia; †Indiana University; ‡Harvard University. We thank Andrea Astill, Ben Ayers, Linda Bamber, Dave Barrett, Neil Bhattacharya, Walt Blacconiere, Christine Botosan, Claire Bush, Jenny Gaver, Ken Gaver, Eric Lie, Laureen Maines, Roger Martin, Marlene Plumlee, Jamie Pratt, Aamer Sheikh, Kimberly Smith, David Upton, Jim Wahlen, Wanda Wallace, Isabel Wang, an anonymous referee, and workshop participants at the University of Utah, Indiana University, the University of Georgia, the University of Missouri, the College of William and Mary, and Louisiana State University for comments on earlier versions of this paper. We also gratefully acknowledge the contribution of IBES International Inc. for providing earnings per share forecast data. These data have been provided as part of a broad academic program to encourage earnings expectations research. unexpected earnings. Our findings hold after control for the aforementioned determinants of attributions and after control for other firm-and forecastspecific variables that are often associated with security prices.

I extend prior research on the information content of conference calls by examining whether they accelerate analysts' and investors' responses to the future implications of currently announced earnings. I find that the initiation of conference calls is associated with a significant reduction in the serial correlation in analyst forecast errors, a measure of initial analyst underreaction. I also find that the initiation of conference calls is associated with significant reductions in two measures of initial investor underreaction: (1) post-earnings announcement drift and (2) the proportion of the total market reaction to firms' earnings announcements that is “delayed” (i.e., that is attributable to post-earnings announcement drift). The reduction in post-earnings announcement drift surrounding conference call initiation is concentrated in the set of sample firms where drift is most severe (i.e., the smallest, least heavily traded sample firms) while the largest, most heavily traded sample firms do not exhibit significant drift either before or after conference call initiation. Robustness tests, including analyses of matched samples of nonconference call firms, indicate that the results are not driven by general increases in analyst and investor sophistication over time or by contemporaneous increases in the information and trading environments of conference call initiators.

Managers often explain their earnings forecasts by linking forecasted performance to their internal actions and the actions of parties external to the firm. These attributions potentially aid investors in the interpretation of management forecasts by confirming known relationships between attributions and profitability or by identifying additional causes that investors should consider when forecasting earnings. We investigate why managers choose to provide attributions with their forecasts and whether the attributions are related to security price reactions to management earnings forecasts. Using a sample of 951 management earnings forecasts issued from 1993 to 1996, we find that attributions are more likely for larger firms, less likely for firms in regulated industries, less likely for forecasts issued over longer horizons, more likely for bad news forecasts, and more likely for forecasts that are maximum type. Furthermore, attributions are associated with greater absolute price reactions to management forecasts, more negative price reactions to management forecasts (forecast news held constant), and a greater price reaction per dollar of * University of Georgia; †Indiana University; ‡Harvard University. We thank Andrea Astill, Ben Ayers, Linda Bamber, Dave Barrett, Neil Bhattacharya, Walt Blacconiere, Christine Botosan, Claire Bush, Jenny Gaver, Ken Gaver, Eric Lie, Laureen Maines, Roger Martin, Marlene Plumlee, Jamie Pratt, Aamer Sheikh, Kimberly Smith, David Upton, Jim Wahlen, Wanda Wallace, Isabel Wang, an anonymous referee, and workshop participants at the University of Utah, Indiana University, the University of Georgia, the University of Missouri, the College of William and Mary, and Louisiana State University for comments on earlier versions of this paper. We also gratefully acknowledge the contribution of IBES International Inc. for providing earnings per share forecast data. These data have been provided as part of a broad academic program to encourage earnings expectations research. unexpected earnings. Our findings hold after control for the aforementioned determinants of attributions and after control for other firm-and forecastspecific variables that are often associated with security prices.

We find that bidders are more likely to hold conference calls at merger announcements when the mergers are financed with stock and when the transactions are large. After controlling for endogeneity, we also find that conference calls are associated with more favorable market reactions to merger announcements. A content analysis of merger-related information releases for a limited subsample indicates that the more favorable reaction is related to the fact that, compared to press releases, conference calls provide a greater volume of information and place greater emphasis on forward-looking details. We find no evidence that the superior announcement returns associated with conference calls subsequently reverse or that conference calls are positively associated with pre-merger announcement abnormal accruals. Overall, the results suggest that managers use conference calls around merger announcements to credibly convey favorable private information to the market.