| Variable | Variable definitions |
| Coverage | the natural logarithm of one plus the number of research reports published by analyst i on firm j in year t. |
| BroCoverage | the alternative variable of Coverage, calculated as the natural logarithm of one plus the number of research reports published by analysts in the same brokerage firm who cover firm j in year t. |
| Size | the natural logarithm of market value, while market value = ln (the number of A-share * current close price of A share + the number of B-share * current close price of B share * current close exchange rate + total liabilities at the end of the period). |
| Turnover | the share turnover, calculated as the trading volume scaled by shares outstanding of stock j in year t. |
| Return | the firm’s cumulative market-adjusted return of stock j in year t. |
| VO | the standard deviation of annual returns of stock j in year t. |
| MB | the market-to-book ratio, calculated as total assets divided by market value at the end of the period of stock j in year t. |
| Exp | analysts’ career experience, calculated as the years between first forecast of analyst i and the last forecast in year t. |
| Star | a dummy variable that equals one if analyst i is selected as the best analyst by The New Fortune Magazine in year t, else zero. |
| Gender | a dummy variable of analysts’ gender, which equals one if analyst i is female, else zero. |
| Degree | the education level of analyst i, junior college’s degree and below for 1, bachelor’s degree for 2, master’s degree for 3, doctoral degree for 4. |
| Brokerage | the number of analysts employed by the brokerage firm which analyst i works for in year t. |
| Year | a dummy variable of years. |
| Industry | a dummy variable of industry factors, referring to SFC 2012 Edition Industry Classification. |
| Relations | the firm-analyst relationship, which is calculated as the standard residuals of regression by separating the observable technical components attributable to firm’s financial characteristics and analysts’ characteristics from analyst coverage proxies. |
| BroRelations | the alternative variable of Relations, which is corresponding to BroCoverage and measures the relations between analysts’ brokerage firm and targeted firms. |
| Recommendations | the rating information of stock recommendations which ranges from 1 to 5, specifically, 1 for “Strong Buy”, 2 for “Buy”, 3 for “Hold”, 4 for “Sell”, and 5 for “Strong Sell”. |
| Downgrades | a dummy variable of recommendations downgrades, which equals one if the last stock recommendation of analyst i in year t involved a downward change from the previous recommendation, else zero. |
| Anal | the analyst coverage, is calculated the natural logarithm of one plus the number of analysts who cover firm j in year t. |
| Level | the asset-liability ratio, calculated as total liabilities divided by total assets at the end of the period of stock j in year t. |
| Volume | the natural logarithm of the trading volume of stock j in year t. |
| Indnum | the natural logarithm of the number of firms in the industry of stock j. |
| Stocknum | the natural logarithm of stocks number covered by analyst i in year t. |
| Brokerage | the number of analysts employed by the brokerage firm which analyst i works for in year t. |
| RFA | the relative forecasting accuracy of analyst i on stock j in year t. |
| RFA_Mean | the mean value of RFA of analysts with the same value of Relations in year t. |
| RFA_Volatility | the volatility of RFA of analysts with the same value of Relations in year t. |