Cross-Extrapolative Beliefs: Evidence from Equity Analysts
Rex Wang Renjie, Patrick Verwijmeren
Management Science · 2026 · Volume 72 · Issue 4
Abstract
We study whether individuals form extrapolative beliefs across different tasks. In line with cross-extrapolation, equity analysts who experience bad news from some of their coverage firms become overly pessimistic about other firms in their coverage. This leads to disagreement among analysts and has implications for the stock market, as we observe effects on trading volume, return volatility, and pricing. Our findings highlight the relevance of non-domain-specific belief models. This paper was accepted by Camelia Kuhnen, finance. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.04903 .
Keywords
behavioral finance, extrapolative beliefs, experience effects, financial analyst
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