Key takeaways
- Concerns about I/B/E/S database anonymization were overstated
- No evidence of large-scale ID anonymization for annual and quarterly EPS forecasts
- The database remains usable for academic research
- We provide tools to help researchers work with I/B/E/S data
- Updated annually with new assessments
The concern
Researchers worried that Refinitiv was anonymizing analyst identifiers in the I/B/E/S database, potentially undermining decades of academic research that relies on tracking individual analysts over time.
What we found
Contrary to concerns, we find no evidence of large-scale ID anonymization or reshuffling for annual and quarterly EPS forecasts for U.S. firms. The database remains reliable for research purposes.
We provide Stata codes to help researchers reverse engineer missing analyst IDs and a linking table for matching broker IDs across different I/B/E/S files.
Practical resources
For researchers working with I/B/E/S data, see our step-by-step tutorial: How to match I/B/E/S vintage without the landmines.
We update this analysis annually. The most recent update (2025) is available via the links above.
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