Discussion of "Analysts' industry expertise"

Kadan et al. (this issue) examine whether financial analysts exhibit industry expertise. It is not obvious from the title, but the study actually examines two different types of analysts: firm-specific analysts that have been examined extensively in prior research, and the rarer industry analysts who provide outlooks on whole industries. This study is the first to examine a large sample of explicit industry recommendations, and provides a fresh insight into an important aspect of financial research industry expertise. In this discussion, I assess the motivation, contribution and empirical procedures within the context of capital markets research on sell-side analysts (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.