Kirk, Reppenhagen, and Tucker (2014) find that investors use individual analyst forecasts as additional earnings benchmarks. We investigate whether executives manage earnings to beat these individual benchmarks. Using year-end effective tax rate (ETR) manipulation as our setting, we find that firms decrease ETRs from 3rd to 4th quarter to meet or beat a greater percentage of individual forecasts. We also find some evidence that firms use incremental ETR changes to meet forecasts by key analysts. After controlling for the distance to the nearest forecast, our evidence shows that firms are more likely to beat an incremental forecast with a decrease in ETR compared to missing an incremental forecast with an increase in ETR. Our study highlights the strategic nature of earnings management by providing evidence that managers consider individual forecasts to calibrate earnings management decisions.

Kirk、Reppenhagen 和 Tucker（2014 年）发现投资者使用个别分析师的预测作为额外的收益基准。我们调查高管是否管理收益以超过这些个人基准。使用年终有效税率 (ETR) 操纵作为我们的设置，我们发现公司从第 3 季度到第 4 季度降低 ETR，以达到或超过更大比例的个人预测。我们还发现一些证据表明公司使用增量 ETR 更改来满足关键分析师的预测。在控制到最近预测的距离之后，我们的证据表明，与 ETR 增加而错过增量预测相比，公司更有可能在 ETR 减少时超过增量预测。