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Games for Attention: Evidence from Analysts’ Earnings Forecasts for US Listed Foreign Firms

Jun Chen et al.

Abacus2025https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12367article
AJG 3ABDC A
Weight
0.41

Abstract

Using the staggered hosting of Olympic Games as a shock to market participants’ attention to US listed foreign firms, we find that financial analysts tend to provide more accurate earnings forecasts for US listed foreign firms from Olympics‐hosting countries after their home countries host the Olympics. In particular, analysts who cover US‐listed foreign firms from both hosting and non‐hosting countries provide less accurate forecasts for those firms of lower relative importance from non‐hosting countries in their portfolios. Our cross‐sectional tests show that the effect of hosting the Olympics is more pronounced for firms with intensified media coverage, higher institutional ownership, more transparent information environments, and from Olympics‐hosting countries that are non‐English speaking, culturally distant from the US, and have non‐common law origins. Collectively, our findings provide novel evidence that prominent global sporting events can have a significant effect on the attention reallocation of foreign market participants, particularly financial analysts.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12367

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@article{jun2025,
  title        = {{Games for Attention: Evidence from Analysts’ Earnings Forecasts for US Listed Foreign Firms}},
  author       = {Jun Chen et al.},
  journal      = {Abacus},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/abac.12367},
}

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Games for Attention: Evidence from Analysts’ Earnings Forecasts for US Listed Foreign Firms

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Evidence weight

0.41

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.25 × 0.4 = 0.10
M · momentum0.55 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.