Comments on ‘earnings forecasting research: its implications for capital markets research’ by L. Brown

Larry Brown has written a useful review of the earnings forecasting literature. In my comments I attempt to augment his review with some potential future research topics. I discuss (1) cross-country comparisons of the time-series properties of earnings and other information variables, (2) cross-country comparisons of the relation between earnings and stock prices and the role of earnings, and other information, in capital markets, (3) the way in which financial analysts forecast earnings and the sort of conditions under which they are/are not accurate, (4) long-term forecasts of earnings, and (5) the role of accounting and other information in financial analysts' predictions of stock returns and assessments of risk.