Minna Yu, Ph.D., professor of accounting and director of the Institute for Global Understanding, co-authored a paper, “Peer MD&A Risk Disclosure and Analysts’ Earnings Forecast Accuracy: Evidence from China,” that was published in the Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics (Vol. 22, Issue 1, 2026).
The study investigates the ways in which risk disclosure in peer firms’ management discussion and analysis (MD&A) influences analysts’ earnings forecast accuracy. From their findings, the authors determine that peer MD&A risk disclosure significantly improves forecast accuracy, demonstrating a positive spillover effect. Their data also suggests the impact of peer MD&A risk disclosure on analysts’ forecast accuracy “strengthens with the comparability and reliability of peer firms’ information, while weakens with the disclosure quality of the focal firm.”
The authors conclude that peer MD&A risk disclosure also reduces stock price crash risk, which provides further evidence that it improves the information environment of the focal firm. They suggest future research on this topic develops measures that capture the quality or substance of such disclosures beyond measuring the frequency of risk-related keywords.
The paper was co-written by Shuai Wang, School of Management, Hefei University, China; Ziyao San, College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, China; and Ling Zhou, Department of Accounting, Anderson School of Management, University of New Mexico.