Fantastic Review of Analyst Forecast Research

If you do research in analyst forecasts, this one;s a must read: The Financial Analyst Forecasting Literature: A Taxonomy with Suggestions for Further Research by Sundaresh Ramnath, Steve Rock, and Philip Shane in the International journal of Forecasting (2008)

Here's the abstract:

This paper develops a taxonomy of research examining the role of financial analysts in capital markets. The paper builds on the perspectives provided by Schipper [Schipper, K. (1991). Analysts' forecasts. Accounting Horizons, 5, 105-131] and Brown [Brown, L. (1993). Earnings forecasting research: Its implications for capital markets research. International Journal of Forecasting, 9, 295-320]. We categorize papers published since 1992, describe the research questions addressed, and suggest avenues for further research in seven broad areas: (1) analysts' decision processes; (2) the nature of analyst expertise and the distributions of earnings forecasts; (3) the information content of analyst research; (4) analyst and market efficiency; (5) analysts' incentives and behavioral biases; (6) the effects of the institutional and regulatory environment (including cross-country comparisons); and (7) research design issues.

Note: although it's a forthcoming paper, there's a downloadable version available from SSRN here.