This paper investigates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on analysts’ forecast dispersion. We find that analysts’ exposure to the COVID-19 lockdown reduces the dispersion of their forecasts. Along with the forecast dispersion, the number of earnings forecasts issued by treated analysts decreases, supporting the channel of attention distraction. Moreover, there is no significant difference between optimistic and pessimistic forecasts, against the explanation of risk attitude change. We find our conclusion is robust to a staggered DID model and numerous robustness tests. Our finding contributes to the dispute regarding the pandemic's effect on analyst forecast behavior.

本文调查了 COVID-19 大流行对分析师预测离差的影响。我们发现，分析师对 COVID-19 封锁的接触减少了他们预测的分散性。随着预测的分散，经过处理的分析师发布的盈利预测数量减少，支持分散注意力的渠道。此外，对于风险态度变化的解释，乐观和悲观预测之间没有显着差异。我们发现我们的结论对于交错 DID 模型和大量稳健性测试是稳健的。我们的发现引发了关于大流行对分析师预测行为的影响的争论。