TY - JOUR TT - Earnings Response Coefficient as a Measure of Market Expectations: Evidence from Tunis Stock Exchange AU - Mahjoubı, Mohamed AU - Abaoub, Ezzeddine PY - 2015 DA - June JF - International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues JO - IJEFI PB - İlhan ÖZTÜRK WT - DergiPark SN - 2146-4138 SP - 377 EP - 389 VL - 5 IS - 2 KW - Earnings forecasts KW - Earnings quality KW - Earnings Response Coefficients KW - Fundamental analysis KW - Market expectations. N2 - This research is a feedback to the call from Richardson et al. (2010) for more structure in researchers’ forecasting frameworks. The purpose is to study the ability of three technical earnings forecasting methods (smoothing, random walk and cross-section) to reflect Tunisian stock market expectations as measured by the Earnings Response Coefficient (ERC). The results of estimating a modified version of Easton & Harris (1991) model that incorporates earnings surprise and its level as return predictors, confirm theoretical predictions on the positive earnings-returns relationship. However, only non-expected earnings are statistically significant. This result indicates a predominance of earnings surprise. Coefficient amplitudes show the subsidiary role of earnings level compared to their surprise in earnings-return regressions. This finding points out the relatively permanent nature of Tunisian firms earnings within Ali & Zarowin (1992)'s context, despite certain exceptions especially with cross-sectional forecasts. Recourse to a quality score based on extreme rankings of examined methods, allowed us to highlight a dominance of smoothing forecasts, followed by those of random walk and finally by the cross-sectional ones. These results corroborate those of Bradshaw et al. (2012) and Gerakos & Gramacy (2013) on the primacy of time series forecasts of earnings and those of Chen and Ho (2014) on the higher explanatory power of earnings changes compared to that of their levels. UR - https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/ijefi/issue//352135 L1 - https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/363005 ER -