Sustainable development goals disclosure and analyst forecast quality

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate sustainable development goals (SDGs) disclosure and analyst forecast quality.

Design/methodology/approach

The study focuses on a sample of 95 Italian-listed companies preparing the mandatory non-financial declaration (NFD) according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards over a five-year period (2017–2021), corresponding to an unbalanced sample of 438 observations. Analyst forecast quality was proxied by earnings forecast accuracy (FA) and earnings forecast dispersion (FD), built on data retrieved from the Refinitiv database. A manual content analysis was performed on NFDs to derive an SDG disclosure score (SDGD) for each sampled company.

Findings

This study provides empirical evidence suggesting that voluntary SDG disclosure matters to the capital market in that it helps enhance the information environment of companies, evidenced by improved analyst forecast quality. In particular, this study highlighted that SDG disclosure positively influences analyst FA while negatively affecting analyst FD.

Research limitations/implications

This study focuses on the Italian context, which has idiosyncratic characteristics regarding the structure of the financial market, the composition of corporate ownership and experience in non-financial reporting practices.

Practical implications

This study indicates to corporate managers that following GRI standards may represent the right way to better integrate SDG disclosure in corporate non-financial reports and increase the relevance of such information for investors and other capital market participants.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that empirically examines the association between SDG disclosure and analyst forecast quality.