Accurate projections of lifetime earnings are useful in projecting Social Security benefits, trust fund balances, and economic resources of the elderly and the effects of changes in Social Security policy. This article projects lifetime Social Security earnings until retirement using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) matched to Social Security records of annual ear...

This study examines how individual investor trade in response to quarterly earnings surprises and the relation of trades to subsequent returns. Individuals are highly significant net buyers after negative earnings surprises; net buying is weaker after positive surprises. There is no indication that trading by any of our investor subcategories explains the concentration of drift at subsequent ea...

Significant changes in mean and median analysts’ forecasts errors documented in recent studies are not synchronized across commercial forecast databases over time and are, in large part, a function of the definitions and procedures that determine the reported earnings component of earnings surprises. In this study we describe a number of complications researchers face in drawing inferences from...

This study focuses on the market reaction to information transfers from economically linked customers. I examine whether investors have limited attention with respect to the information contained in customer earnings announcements for suppliers. Using 1083 unique customer–supplier relationships for the period 1983–2011, I find that the cumulative abnormal returns of a supplier surrounding and f...

This paper examines the relative importance of earnings and operating cash flows in equity valuation. In contrast to previous studies that use stock returns or future operating cash flows, we use ex post intrinsic value of equity as the criterion for comparison. Ex post intrinsic value of equity is determined adopting both the discounted dividend and residual income models with ex post (future)...

The Israeli society is ethnically diverse and it is an ideal case for studying the role of rising inequality on the widening earnings gaps between dominant and subordinate groups. Earnings differences between Ashkenazi men—the dominant group in Israeli society—and the other major ethnic/gender groups in the Israeli labor market and society (Mizrahi men, Arab men, Ashkenazi women, and Mizrahi wo...

This paper examines the usefulness of accounting information in predicting earnings management. We investigate a comprehensive sample of firms from 1971-2000 that restated annual earnings. We find that firms restating earnings have high market expectations for future earnings growth and have higher levels of outstanding debt. We also find that a primary motivation for the earnings manipulation ...

Using an extensive set of establishment and individual data, we estimate the extent to which the variance of earnings among establishments increased in 1977-2002 and its contribution to the increased dispersion of US earnings among individuals. We find that more than 70 percent of the increase in the variance of earnings in this period occurred across establishments. More than two thirds of the...

The singular focus of public debate on the "top 1 percent" of households overlooks the component of earnings inequality that is arguably most consequential for the "other 99 percent" of citizens: the dramatic growth in the wage premium associated with higher education and cognitive ability. This Review documents the central role of both the supply and demand for skills in shaping inequality, di...