Segmental reporting, accounting enforcement and analyst dispersion in the European Union

This paper investigates the relationship between segmental reporting and analyst forecast dispersion in the largest European Union firms. It also addresses how the adoption of IFRS8 and the country-level enforcement affect this relationship. A positive relationship is found between segmental reporting and analyst forecasts dispersion. However, using sub-samples analyses, the results reveal a negative relationship between segmental reporting and analyst forecast dispersion in countries with strong enforcement system. Furthermore, this paper documents that the positive relationship between segmental reporting and analyst forecast dispersion is dominant only in the Pre-IFRS8 period. Therefore, these findings suggest that country-level enforcement compensates for lower segmental reporting quality and the adoption of IFRS8 improves the quality of segmental reporting.