The Effects of Financial Statement Comparability on Firm Visibility

Abstract

We demonstrate how the financial statement comparability enhances firm visibility that the number of analyst reports reflects in the market thereby strengthening investors’ recognition and stakeholders’ awareness of a firm. As sophisticated information providers, analysts are able to analyze more intensively and efficiently comparable accounting information and issue frequently analyst reports on each high－visibility firm. This finding highlights that a particular analyst continuously generates a series of analyst reports focusing on a particular firm which yields more comparable financial information. The number of analyst reports indicates an individual analyst’s effort in the analysis of an individual firm, whereas the number of analysts represents the collective effort of analysts community. The testable implication of our results builds upon prior evidence about comparability benefits to analysts and contributes to the further understanding of analyst research.