research paper on equity analysis

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• 22 Apr 2024
• Research & Ideas

When Does Impact Investing Make the Biggest Impact?

More investors want to back businesses that contribute to social change, but are impact funds the only approach? Research by Shawn Cole, Leslie Jeng, Josh Lerner, Natalia Rigol, and Benjamin Roth challenges long-held assumptions about impact investing and reveals where such funds make the biggest difference.

• 27 Apr 2023
• Cold Call Podcast

Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi: Transforming Lives with Access to Credit

James Mwangi, CEO of Equity Bank, has transformed lives and livelihoods throughout East and Central Africa by giving impoverished people access to banking accounts and micro loans. He’s been so successful that in 2020 Forbes coined the term “the Mwangi Model.” But can we really have both purpose and profit in a firm? Harvard Business School professor Caroline Elkins, who has spent decades studying Africa, explores how this model has become one that business leaders are seeking to replicate throughout the world in her case, “A Marshall Plan for Africa': James Mwangi and Equity Group Holdings.” As part of a new first-year MBA course at Harvard Business School, this case examines the central question: what is the social purpose of the firm?

• 18 Apr 2023

The Best Person to Lead Your Company Doesn't Work There—Yet

Recruiting new executive talent to revive portfolio companies has helped private equity funds outperform major stock indexes, says research by Paul Gompers. Why don't more public companies go beyond their senior executives when looking for top leaders?

• 13 Dec 2022

The Color of Private Equity: Quantifying the Bias Black Investors Face

Prejudice persists in private equity, despite efforts to expand racial diversity in finance. Research by Josh Lerner sizes up the fundraising challenges and performance double standards that Black and Hispanic investors confront while trying to support other ventures—often minority-owned businesses.

• 30 Nov 2020
• Working Paper Summaries

Short-Termism, Shareholder Payouts, and Investment in the EU

Shareholder-driven “short-termism,” as evidenced by increasing payouts to shareholders, is said to impede long-term investment in EU public firms. But a deep dive into the data reveals a different story.

• 16 Nov 2020

Private Equity and COVID-19

Private equity investors are seeking new investments despite the pandemic. This study shows they are prioritizing revenue growth for value creation, giving larger equity stakes to management teams, and targeting somewhat lower returns.

• 13 Nov 2020

Long-Run Returns to Impact Investing in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies

Examination of every equity investment made by the International Finance Corporation, one of the largest and longest-operating impact investors, shows this portfolio has outperformed the S&P 500 by 15 percent.

• 13 Jan 2020

Do Private Equity Buyouts Get a Bad Rap?

Elizabeth Warren calls private equity buyouts "Wall Street looting," but a recent study by Josh Lerner and colleagues shows they have both positive and negative impacts. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 05 Nov 2019

The Economic Effects of Private Equity Buyouts

Private equity buyouts are a major financial enterprise that critics see as dominated by rent-seeking activities with little in the way of societal benefits. This study of 6,000 US buyouts between 1980 and 2013 finds that the real side effects of buyouts on target firms and their workers vary greatly by deal type and market conditions.

• 16 Oct 2019

Core Earnings? New Data and Evidence

Using a novel dataset of earnings-related disclosures embedded in the 10-Ks, this paper shows how detailed financial statement analysis can produce a measure of core earnings that is more persistent than traditional earnings measures and forecasts future performance. Analysts and market participants are slow to appreciate the importance of transitory earnings.

• 19 Nov 2018

Lazy Prices

The most comprehensive information windows that firms provide to the markets—in the form of their mandated annual and quarterly filings—have changed dramatically over time, becoming significantly longer and more complex. When firms break from their routine phrasing and content, this action contains rich information for future firm stock returns and outcomes.

• 04 Sep 2018

Investing Outside the Box: Evidence from Alternative Vehicles in Private Capital

Private equity vehicles that differ from the traditional structure have become a major portion of investors’ portfolios, especially over the past decade. This study identifies differences in performance across limited and general partners participating in such vehicles, as well as across the two broad classes of alternative vehicles.

• 29 Aug 2018

How Much Does Your Boss Make? The Effects of Salary Comparisons

This study of more than 2,000 employees at a multibillion dollar firm explores how perceptions about peers’ and managers’ salaries affect employee behaviors and preferences for equity. Employees exhibit a high tolerance for inequality when job titles differ, which may explain why incentives are granted through promotions, and gender pay differences are most pronounced across positions.

• 12 Feb 2018

Private Equity, Jobs, and Productivity: Reply to Ayash and Rastad

In 2014, the authors published an influential analysis of private equity buyouts in the American Economic Review. Recently, economists Brian Ayash and Mahdi Rastad have challenged the accuracy of those findings. This new paper responds point by point to their critique, contending that it reflects a misunderstanding of the data and methodology behind the original study.

• 19 Sep 2017

An Invitation to Market Design

Effective market design can improve liquidity, efficiency, and equity in markets. This paper illustrates best practices in market design through three examples: the design of medical residency matching programs, a scrip system to allocate food donations to food banks, and the recent “Incentive Auction” that reallocated wireless spectrum from television broadcasters to telecoms.

• 28 Aug 2017

Should Industry Competitors Cooperate More to Solve World Problems?

George Serafeim has a theory that if industry competitors collaborated more, big world problems could start to be addressed. Is that even possible in a market economy? Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 04 Aug 2017

Private Equity and Financial Fragility During the Crisis

Examining the activity of almost 500 private equity-backed companies during the 2008 financial crisis, this study finds that during a time in which capital formation dropped dramatically, PE-backed companies invested more aggressively than peer companies did. Results do not support the hypothesis that private equity contributed to the fragility of the economy during the recent financial crisis.

• 12 May 2017

Equality and Equity in Compensation

Why do some firms such as technology startups offer the same equity compensation packages to all new employees despite very different cash salaries? This paper presents evidence that workers dislike inequality in equity compensation more than salary compensation because of the perceived scarcity of equity.

• 03 May 2016

Pay Now or Pay Later? The Economics within the Private Equity Partnership

Partnerships are essential to the professional service and investment sectors. Yet the partnership structure raises issues including intergenerational continuity. This study of more than 700 private equity partnerships finds 1) the allocation of fund economics is typically weighted toward the founders of the firms, 2) the distributions of carried interest and ownership substantially affect the stability of the partnership, and 3) partners’ departures have a negative effect on private equity groups’ ability to raise additional funds.

• 15 Feb 2016

Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting

This paper studies the asset selection of private equity investors and the risk and return properties of passive portfolios with similarly selected investments in publicly traded securities. Results indicate that sophisticated institutional investors appear to significantly overpay for the portfolio management services associated with private equity investments.

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What’s in an Equity Research Report?

If you're new here, please click here to get my FREE 57-page investment banking recruiting guide - plus, get weekly updates so that you can break into investment banking . Thanks for visiting!

Even though you can easily find real equity research reports via the magical tool known as “Google,” we’ve continued to get questions on this topic.

Whenever I see the same question over and over again, you know what I do: I bash my head in repeatedly and contemplate jumping off a building…

…and then I write an article to answer the question.

To understand an equity research report, you must understand what goes into a  stock pitch first.

The idea is similar, but an ER report is a “watered-down” version of a stock pitch.

But banks have some very solid reasons for publishing equity research reports:

Why Do Equity Research Reports Matter?

You might remember from previous articles that equity research teams do not spend that much time writing these reports .

Most of their time is spent speaking with management teams and institutional investors and sharing their views on sectors and companies.

However, equity research reports are still important because:

• You do still spend some time doing the required modeling work (~15%) and writing the reports (~20%).
• You might have to write a research report as part of the interview process.

For example, if you apply to an equity research role or an equity research internship , especially in an off-cycle process, you might be asked to draft a short report on a company.

And then in roles outside of ER, you need to know how to interpret reports quickly and extract the key information.

Equity Research Reports: Myth vs. Reality

If you want to understand equity research reports, you have to understand first why banks publish them: to earn higher commissions from trading activity.

A bank wants to encourage institutional investors to buy more shares of the companies it covers.

Doing so generates more trading volume and higher commissions for the bank.

This is why you rarely, if ever, see “Sell” ratings, and why “Hold” ratings are far less common than “Buy” ratings.

Different Types of Equity Research Reports

One last point before getting into the tutorial: There are many different types of research reports.

“Initiating Coverage” reports tend to be long – 50-100 pages or more – and have tons of industry research and data.

“Sector Reports” on entire industries are also very long. And there are other types, which you can read about here .

In this tutorial, we’re focusing on the “Company Update” or “Company Note”-type reports, which are the most common ones.

The Full Tutorial, Video, and Sample Equity Research Reports

For our full walk-through of equity research reports, please see the video below:

Table of Contents:

• 1:43: Part 1: Stock Pitches vs. Equity Research Reports
• 6:00: Part 2: The 4 Main Differences in Research Reports
• 12:46: Part 3: Sample Reports and the Typical Sections
• 20:53: Recap and Summary

You can get the reports and documents referenced in the video here:

• Equity Research Report – Jazz Pharmaceuticals [JAZZ] – OUTPERFORM [BUY] Recommendation [PDF]
• Equity Research Report – Shawbrook [SHAW] – NEUTRAL [HOLD] Recommendation [PDF]
• Equity Research Reports vs. Stock Pitches – Slides [PDF]

If you want the text version instead, keep reading:

Watered-Down Stock Pitches

You should think of equity research reports as “watered-down stock pitches.”

If you’ve forgotten, a hedge fund or asset management stock pitch ( sample stock pitch here ) has the following components:

• Part 1: Recommendation
• Part 2: Company Background
• Part 3: Investment Thesis
• Part 4: Catalysts
• Part 5: Valuation
• Part 6: Investment Risks and How to Mitigate Them
• Part 7: The Worst-Case Scenario and How to Avoid It

In a stock pitch, you’ll spend most of your time and energy on the Catalysts, Valuation, and Investment Risks because you want to express a VERY different view of the company .

For example, the company’s stock price is $100, but you believe it’s worth only $50 because it’s about to report earnings 80% lower than expectations.

Therefore, you recommend shorting the stock. You also recommend purchasing call options at an exercise price of $125 to limit your losses to 25% if the stock moves in the opposite direction.

In an equity research report, you’ll still express a view of the company that’s different from the consensus, but your view won’t be dramatically different.

You’ll spend more time on the Company Background and Valuation sections, and far less time and space on the Catalysts and Risk Factors. And you won’t even write a Worst-Case Scenario section.

If a company seems overvalued by 50%, a research analyst would probably write a “Hold” recommendation, say that there’s “uncertainty around several customers,” and claim that the company’s current market value is appropriate.

Oh, and by the way, one risk factor is that the company might report lower-than-expected earnings.

The Four Main Differences in Equity Research Reports

The main differences are as follows:

1) There’s More Emphasis on Recent Results and Announcements

For example, how does a recent product announcement, clinical trial result, or earnings report impact the company?

You’ll almost always see recent news and updates on the first page of a research report:

These factors may play a role in hedge fund stock pitches as well, but more so in short recommendations since timing is more important there.

2) Far-Outside-the-Mainstream Views Are Less Common

One comical example of this trend is how all 15 equity research analysts covering Enron rated it a “buy” right before it collapsed :

Sell-side analysts are far less likely to point out that the emperor has no clothes than buy-side analysts.

3) Research Reports Give “Target Prices” Rather Than Target Price Ranges

For example, the company is trading at $50.00 right now, but we expect its price to increase to exactly $75.00 in the next twelve months.

This idea is completely ridiculous because valuation is always about the range of possible outcomes, not a specific outcome.

Despite horrendously low accuracy , this practice continues.

To be fair, many analysts do give target prices in different cases, which is an improvement:

4) The Investment Thesis, Catalysts, and Risk Factors Are “Looser”

These sections tend to be “afterthoughts” in most reports.

For example, the bank might give a few reasons why it expects the company’s share price to rise: the company will capture more market share than expected, it will be able to increase its product prices more rapidly than expected, and a competitor is about to go bankrupt.

However, the sell-side analyst will not tie these factors to specific share-price impacts as a buy-side analyst would.

Similarly, the report might mention catalysts and investment risks, but there won’t be a link to a specific valuation impact from each factor.

So the typical stock pitch logic (“We think there’s a 50% chance of gaining 80% and a 50% chance of losing 20%”) won’t be spelled out explicitly:

Your Sample Equity Research Reports

To illustrate these concepts, I’m sharing two equity research reports from our financial modeling courses :

The first one is from the valuation case study in our Advanced Financial Modeling course , and the second one is from the main case study in our Bank Modeling course .

These are comprehensive examples, backed by industry data and outside research, but if you want a shorter/simpler example you can recreate in a few hours, the Core Financial Modeling course has just that.

In each case, we started by creating traditional HF/AM stock pitches and valuations and then made our views weaker in the research reports.

The Typical Sections of an Equity Research Report

So let’s briefly go through the main sections of these reports, using the two examples above:

Page 1: Update, Rating, Price Target, and Recent Results

The first page of an “Update” report states the bank’s recommendation (Buy, Hold, or Sell, sometimes with slightly different terminology), and gives recent updates on the company.

For example, in both these reports we reference recent earnings results from the companies and expectations for the next fiscal year:

We also give a “target price,” explain where it comes from, and give our estimates for the company’s key financial metrics.

We mention catalysts in both reports, but we don’t link anything to a specific valuation impact.

One problem with providing a specific “target price” is that it must be based on specific multiples and specific assumptions in a DCF or DDM.

So with Jazz, we explain that the $170.00 target is based on 20.7x and 15.3x EV/EBITDA multiples for the comps, and a discount rate of 8.07% and Terminal FCF growth rate of 0.3% in the DCF.

Next: Operations and Financial Summary

Next, you’ll see a section with lots of graphs and charts detailing the company’s financial performance, market share, and important metrics and ratios.

For a pharmaceutical company like Jazz, you might see revenue by product, pricing and # of patients per product per year, and EBITDA margins.

For a commercial bank like Shawbrook, you might see loan growth, interest rates, interest income and net income, and regulatory capital figures such as the Common Equity Tier 1 (CET 1) and Tangible Common Equity (TCE) ratios:

This section of the report explains how the analyst or equity research associate forecast the company’s performance and came up with the numbers used in the valuation.

The valuation section is the one that’s most similar in a research report and a stock pitch.

In both fields, you explain how you arrived at the company’s implied value, which usually involves pasting in a DCF or DDM analysis and comparable companies and transactions.

The methodologies are the same, but the assumptions might differ substantially.

In research, you’re also more likely to point to specific multiples, such as the 75 th percentile EV/EBITDA multiple, and explain why they are the most meaningful ones.

For example, you might argue that since the company’s growth rates and margins exceed the medians of the set, it deserves to be valued at the 75 th percentile multiples rather than the median multiples:

Investment Thesis, Catalysts, and Risks

This section is short, and it is more of an afterthought than anything else.

We do give reasons for why these companies might be mis-priced, but the reasoning isn’t that detailed.

For example, in the Shawbrook report we state that the U.K. mortgage market might slow down and that regulatory changes might reduce the market size and the company’s market share:

Those are legitimate catalysts, but the report doesn’t explain their share-price impact in the same way that a stock pitch would.

Finally, banks present Investment Risks mostly so they can say, “Well, we warned you there were risks and that our recommendation might be wrong.”

By contrast, buy-side analysts present Investment Risks so they can say, “There is a legitimate chance we could lose 50% – let’s hedge against that risk with options or other investments so that our fund does not collapse .”

How These Reports Both Differ from the Corresponding Stock Pitches

The Jazz equity research report corresponds to a “Long” pitch that’s much stronger:

• We estimate its intrinsic value as $180 – $220 / share , up from $170 in the report.
• We estimate the per-share impact of each catalyst: price increases add 15% to the share price, more patients from marketing efforts add 10%, and later-than-expected generics competition adds 15%.
• We also estimate the per-share impact from the risk factors and conclude that in the worst case , the company’s share price might decline from $130 to $75-$80. But in all likelihood, even if we’re wrong, the company is simply valued appropriately at $130.
• And then we explain how to hedge against these risks with put options.

The same differences apply to the Shawbrook research report vs. the stock pitch, but the stock pitch there is a “Short” recommendation where we claim that the company is overvalued by 30-50%.

And that sums up the differences perfectly: A Short recommendation with 30-50% downside in a stock pitch turns into a “Hold” recommendation with roughly equal upside and downside in a sell-side research report.

I’ve been harsh on equity research here, but I don’t want to disparage it too much.

There are many positives: You do get more creativity than in IB, it might be better for hedge fund or asset management exits, and it’s more fun to follow companies than to grind through grunt work on deals.

But no matter how you slice it, most equity research reports are watered-down stock pitches.

So, make sure you understand the “strong stuff” first before you downgrade – even if your long-term goal is equity research.

You might be interested in:

• The Equity Research Analyst Career Path: The Best Escape from a Ph.D. Program, or a Pathway into the Abyss?
• Private Equity Regulation : 2023 Changes and Impact on Finance Careers
• Stock Pitch Guide: How to Pitch a Stock in Interviews and Win Offers

About the Author

Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street . In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.

Free Exclusive Report: 57-page guide with the action plan you need to break into investment banking - how to tell your story, network, craft a winning resume, and dominate your interviews

Read below or Add a comment

15 thoughts on “ What’s in an Equity Research Report? ”

Hi Brian, what softwares are available to publish Research Reports?

We use Word templates. Some large banks have specialized/custom programs, but not sure how common they are.

Is it possible if you can send me a template in word of an equity report? It will help the graduate stock management fund a lot at Umass Boston.

We only have PDF versions for these, but Word should be able to open any PDF reasonably well.

Do you also provide a pre constructed version of an ER in word?

We have editable examples of equity research reports in Word, but we generally only share PDF versions on this site.

Hey Brian Can you please help me with coverage initiated reports on oil companies. I could not find them on the net. I need to them to get equity research experience, after which only I will be able to get into the field. I searched but reports could not be found even for a price. Thanks

We have an example of an oil & gas stock pitch on this site… do a search…

https://mergersandinquisitions.com/oil-gas-stock-pitch/

Beyond that, sorry, we cannot look for reports and then share them with you or we’d be inundated with requests to do that every day.

No worries. Thanks!

Hi! Brian! Do u know how investment bankers design and layout an equity research? the software they use. like MS Word, Adobe Indesign or something…? And how to create and layout one? Thanks

where can I get free equity research report? I am a Chinese student and now study in Australia. Is the Morning Star a good resource for research report?

Get a TD Ameritrade to access free reports there for certain companies.

How do you view the ER industry since the trading commission has been down 50% since 2007. And there are new in coming regulation governing the ER reports have to explicitly priced and funds need to pay for the report explicity rather than as a service comes free with brokerage?

In addition the whole S&T environment is becoming highly automated.

People have been predicting the death of equity research for over a decade, but it’s still here. It may not be around in 100 years, but it will still be around in another 10 years, though it will be smaller and less relevant.

Yes, things are becoming more automated, but the actual job of an equity research analyst or associate hasn’t changed dramatically. A machine can’t speak with investors to assess their sentiment on a company – only humans can do that.

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Ratio Analysis and Equity Valuation: From Research to Practice

• Published: March 2001
• Volume 6 , pages 109–154, ( 2001 )

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• Doron Nissim 1 &
• Stephen H. Penman 2  

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Financial statement analysis has traditionally been seen as part of thefundamental analysis required for equity valuation. But the analysis has typicallybeen ad hoc. Drawing on recent research on accounting-based valuation, this paperoutlines a financial statement analysis for use in equity valuation. Standardprofitability analysis is incorporated, and extended, and is complemented with ananalysis of growth. An analysis of operating activities is distinguished from theanalysis of financing activities. The perspective is one of forecasting payoffs to equities. So financial statement analysis is presented as a matter of pro formaanalysis of the future, with forecasted ratios viewed as building blocks offorecasts of payoffs. The analysis of current financial statements is then seen asa matter of identifying current ratios as predictors of the future ratios thatdetermine equity payoffs. The financial statement analysis is hierarchical, withratios lower in the ordering identified as finer information about those higher up.To provide historical benchmarks for forecasting, typical values for ratios aredocumented for the period 1963–1999, along with their cross-sectionalvariation and correlation. And, again with a view to forecasting, the time seriesbehavior of many of the ratios is also described and their typical “long-run,steady-state” levels are documented.

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Nissim, D., Penman, S.H. Ratio Analysis and Equity Valuation: From Research to Practice. Review of Accounting Studies 6 , 109–154 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011338221623

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011338221623

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Here’s How to Write an Equity Research Report: The Best Guide

October 17, 2016

Equity Research is a rewarding career.

To keep up, you need a strong foundation with the judgment to think critically, act independently, and be relentlessly analytical.

That’s why I wrote this guide — to empower you with the equity research(ER) report writing skills to stay ahead in the equity research career.

There is almost NO guide available that teaches you how to write an equity research report.

From textbooks to online video tutorials, you can check and let me know if you find one.

And, I felt that I should write a detailed and step-by-step guide— a guide that really starts at the beginning to equip already-intelligent analysts with a healthy balance of conceptual and practical advice.

The Advanced Guide to Equity Research Report Writing takes your writing to the next level.

Who Is This Guide for?

I wrote this guide for an audience of equity research analysts , investment banking professionals, industry analysts, market research professionals, business management students, and freelance writers.

Most of all, I want you to walk away from this guide feeling confident about your equity report writing skill.

What Is an Equity Research Report

This chapter explains what exactly an ER report is.

The questions like—Who makes it? Who reads and uses it? What are the different types of equity research reports?—are answered clearly and elaborately.

It briefly talks about the various key contents of an ER report.

And lastly, it explains the need to provide a disclaimer at the end of an ER report.

So before understanding how to write an ER report, let’s try to understand what exactly an equity ER is.

FINRA , the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, defines an equity research report, in Rule 2711 (a)(8) as,

 “A written or electronic communication that includes an analysis of equity securities of individual companies or industries , and that provides information reasonably sufficient upon which to base an investment decision.

Readers of Equity Research, more so than anything else, identify trends that make investment decisions easier to justify.

In simpler words, equity research is a document written and published by a brokerage house or securities firm for its clients to help them to make better decisions regarding which stocks to choose for profitable investment.

The report should be such that it should convince the client to make a decision.

The report should be crisp; the point of view should be clearly structured and articulated concisely.

In the investment industry, equity reports usually refer to ‘sell-side’ research, or investment research created by brokerage houses.

Such research is circulated to the corporate and retail clients of the brokerage house that publishes it.

Research produced by the ‘buy-side’, which includes mutual funds, pension funds, and portfolio managers, is usually for internal use and is not distributed to outside parties.

a. Different types of equity reports

In the above paragraph, we saw terms such as ‘sell-side’ and ‘buy-side’.

Let’s quickly understand what these terms mean:

There are two main types of equity research reports:

i. Sell-Side reports

Sell-side reports are the most common type of equity research reports in circulation.

They are normally produced by investment banks , typically for their clients to guide their investment decisions.

A sell-side analyst works for a brokerage firm or bank which manages individual clients and makes investment recommendations to them.

Sell-side analysts issue the often-heard recommendations of “buy”, “hold”, “neutral”, or “sell”.

These recommendations help clients make decisions to buy or sell stocks.

This is favourable for the brokerage firm as each time a client takes a decision to trade; the brokerage firm gets a commission on the transactions.

Click here to see some examples of sell-side reports

ii. Buy-Side reports

The ‘buy-side’ reports are internal reports, produced for the bank itself, and are guided by differing perspectives and motivations.

A buy-side analyst generally works for a mutual fund or a pension fund company.

They perform research and make recommendations to the money managers of the fund that hires them.

Buy-side analysts will verify how promising an investment seems and how well it fits with the fund’s investment strategy.

These recommendations are made exclusively for the benefit of the fund that employs them and is not available to anyone outside the fund.

Within the buy/sell group, there are other types of reports like initiating coverage reports, standard reports, Issue reports, Investor notes, and sector reports.

iii. Initiating coverage reports

The initiating coverage reports are conducted on firms that the bank has begun following and are typically more comprehensive in nature.

Initiating coverage reports analyze a company’s historical financial information, order books, efficiency, SWOT, cash-flows, and future earning potential, basis which it estimates the future earnings of the company and its P/E multiples.

Click here to see some examples of initiating coverage reports

iv. Standard reports

After an initiating report is produced standard reports will follow for as long as the brokerage house continues to track the stock.

Stocks that are tracked are typically part of an index like the SENSEX or are amongst the top stocks in an industry as these are the stocks that investors care about and are traded in larger volumes.

v. Issue reports

These reports are issued when generally companies announce earnings each quarter (Quarterly earnings reports).

vi. Investor notes

These reports are published a few times in between for incremental information and news.

For example – investor conference companies hold a big M&A deal or a major new product announcement from a competitor.

These are usually short-run updates and are typically just quantitative in nature.

vii. Sector reports

A sector report is a document that evaluates a given industry and the companies involved in it.

It is often included as part of a business plan and typically seeks to establish how one company can gain an advantage in industry through detailed research on competition, products, and customers.

Click here to download the sector report

b. Contents of an equity research report

Now that we have understood the different types of equity research reports, let’s try to see the contents of an ER report.

An ER report should not be more than 10 to 15 pages long and should be very crisp and concise.

It should give the reader a clear understanding of the opinion of the analyst writing the report.

An ER report typically has the following contents:

1. Analyst opinion and summary

2. Key highlights of the company

3. A snapshot of the industry

4. Financial ratio analysis

5. Financial Modeling and Valuation analysis

6. Risk factors

7. Disclosure and rationale of rating

Usually, most of the equity research reports have this information; however, there is no hard and fast rule in which an ER report should be written.

We will study in detail (with examples) how to write each of these segments of an ER report in the forthcoming chapters.

c. Importance of Disclaimers in Analyst Reports

As every ER report is an investment document, and investors use it to make decisions for buying or selling securities based on it, it is important for the report to have certain disclaimers to show un-biases of the analyst writing the report.

Some typical disclaimers are as follows:

• Every ER report entirely reflects views and personal opinions of the analyst as on the date of publication
• The equity research analyst does not have an interest in the shares of the company
• Compensation of the analyst is not linked directly to any specific research recommendations contained in the report

Financial Analysts or equity research analysts working in brokerage firms or sell-side analysts write equity research reports.

Equity research report writing process

Equity Research Report writing

After completing the fundamental analysis, financial statement analysis, ratio analysis, and valuation, the last part of the equity research process is writing equity research reports.

As an equity research analyst, you need to analyze the industry and the company first and then write the stock research report.

This step is paramount in your equity research analysis career .

This is important to write the equity research reports in such a way that your clients understand every word of it.

It’s also important to include relevant analysis that you’ve done in the report.

How to write a report

Let’s see each step of writing an equity research report in detail.

1. Company fundamental analysis

a) Macroeconomic Analysis

b) Checking public information of the company

c) Discussion/ interviews with company management

d) Prepare a 5-year cash flow model and earnings forecast model

e) Review your operational and financial assumptions

f) Assess management and competitive environment, buyers, suppliers, substitutes, porter 5-forces model that tells you the competitive advantage of the company.

2. Company valuation analysis

1. Use intrinsic valuation—Discounted Cash Flow(DCF) method

2. Relative valuation

3. sum-of-the-parts valuation method, wherever required.

Pointers for writing equity research reports

I’ve created a list of pointers purely based on my experience and observations and a bit of research about dos and don’ts while writing an equity research report.

1. A clear view of the company

Before writing the report, have a clear view of the company in terms of—Investment rationale, risk assessment, key growth drivers, cost drivers, and revenue drivers.

2. Recommendation/Rating

Clearly write the company’s name at the top of the report and mention your recommendation—buy, sell, hold.

You can also use the words—outperform, underperform, neutral or accumulate based on your valuation.

Have an image of an equity research report in your mind, and so you won’t miss these details.

Usually, there are templates available in your company and you need to write the report using these templates.

3. Target price

You need to mention the target price based on your valuation along with the recommendation.

4. Investment rationale

Write clearly your investment rationale. Why do you think the share price will go up/down?

5. Share price chart

Include a price chart of the stock that will show the last 52-weeks’ share price movement.

6.Business model

Mention the analysis of the company’s business model and how will it perform in the next 2-3 years.

7. Key ratio analysis

Include important ratio analysis of the company and 52-week high-low share price on a stock exchange.

Include market capitalization, Enterprise Value(EV), Earnings Before Interest Tax and Depreciation (EBITDA), EV/EBITDA, and dividend yield (%)

8. Product profile and segments

Analyze the company’s product profile, its various segments, and brands. Include current sales and forecasted revenue figures, cost, market size, company’s market share, competition, the company’s performance in domestic and other markets.

9. Economy-Industry-Company (E-I-C) Analysis

Cover the company’s fundamental analysis with supportive data.

10. Intrinsic and relative valuation

Perform DCF analysis and relative valuation. Relative valuation should be done with the company’s peers on the basis of Price-Earnings ratio (P/E), Price to Book ratio (P/B), Price to Sales (P/S), Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Capital Employed (ROCE).

11. Reasoning for recommendation

Write proper reasoning for your recommendation. For example—Why buy the stock or why not to buy the stock. So, your reasoning has to be strong.

12. Unlock the value

Write what can unlock/increase/reduce the value of the company .

13. Legal matters

If the company is battling any case, write what could be its effects on the stock price.

14. Common industry points

While writing industry reports, write the points which are common for all players in the industry, for example, regulatory limitation, excise duty, oil prices, etc.

15. Covering all the areas in an equity research report

While writing the equity research report, assume that the reader is new to the company and he doesn’t have any idea about its business.

So, your report should include precise information about—product, financials, management, market, future plans of the company, growth estimates, and the risk factors of the company.

In short, as an equity research analyst, your equity analysis report writing process should be structured and you should follow the dos and don’ts mentioned in this post.

Sample equity research reports (PDFs):

The Walt Disney Company

If you have any queries, Speak Your Mind.

Key Takeaways

• Equity research report writing is a skill . You need to build this skill to go to the next level in your career . Top-notch careers in finance–equity research, investment banking , asset management, financial research, Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) units value this skill in high regard.
• There are different types of research reports–sell-side, buy-side, initiating coverage, standard, issue, investor notes, and sector reports. As an analyst, you should know all these reports.
• Contents of an equity research report include Analyst opinion and summary, Key highlights of the company,  A snapshot of the industry, Financial and ratio analysis, Valuation analysis, Risk factors, and Disclosure and rationale of rating. I’m going to cover all these sections in detail with examples in the coming chapters.

Now You Try It

I hope you can see the potential of equity research report writing skills for your career.

Yes, it takes hard work to create something great.

But with this skill, you already know ahead of time that your hard work is going to pay off.

I want you to give the skill a try and let me know how it works for you.

If you have a question or thought, leave a comment below and I’ll get right to it.

• Download BIWS Course sample videos here .
• Read Students’ Testimonials here .

Avadhut is the Founder of FinanceWalk. He enjoys writing on Finance Careers topics. Check our Financial Modeling Courses . Contact us for  Career Coaching based on Your Inner GPS.

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How To Do Equity Research: An Actionable Guide

ContentsWho Is This Guide for?What Is an Equity Research Reporta. Different types of equity reportsi. Sell-Side reportsii. Buy-Side reportsiii. Initiating coverage reportsiv. Standard reportsv. Issue reportsvi. Investor notesvii. Sector reportsb. Contents of an equity research reportc. Importance of Disclaimers in Analyst ReportsEquity research report writing processHow to write a report1. Company fundamental analysis2. Company valuation analysisPointers for writing equity research reports1. A clear view of the company2. Recommendation/Rating3. Target price4. Investment rationale5. Share price chart6.Business model7. Key ratio analysis8. Product profile ...

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Transport equity analysis

2017, Transport Reviews

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This paper provides guidance on incorporating equity impacts into transportation planning. It defines various types of equity, discusses ways of evaluating equity , and describes practical ways of incorporating equity objectives into decision-making. "Equity" refers to the fairness with which impacts (benefits and costs) are distributed. Transportation decisions often have significant equity impacts. Transport equity analysis can be difficult because there are several types of equity, numerous impacts to consider, various ways to categorize people for analysis, and many ways of measuring impacts. Equity analysis should usually consider a variety of perspectives and impacts.

Transport and Equity Analysis COST Action – TU1209 dedicated a special attention to the mobility challenges related with the social and technical dimensions of transport. The three theoretical and practical results of TEA COST dealing with mobility issues are:<br> 1. Proposing a shift from a time-saving based appraisal paradigm to a new composite variable able to jointly consider personal characteristics, spatial accessibility, and trips attributes (i.e. needs of people).<br> 2. Changing the approach for analyzing users' mobility choice from a utility-based approach to a needs-based approach.<br> 3. Opening transport planning to the real participation of users through adapted mobility survey, meetings for proposing and creating consensus around transport planning measures, and innovative governance tools.

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Equity Research Using Technical Analysis

• July 25, 2019
• Posted by: RSIS
• Category: Social Science

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue VII, July 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

Varshini Venu 1 , Dr. Bhavya Vikas 2 , Charithra C M 3 1 MBA 2 nd year, BNM Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka, India 2 Associate Professor, BNM Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka, India 3 Assistant Professor, BNM Institute of Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Abstract:- Technical analysis is a financial market technique that claim the ability to forecast the future direction of stock through the study past market data, price movement patterns, price and volume correlation; these data are widely used by traders. Technical analysis also considers the actual price and volume behaviour of the market or instruments on the assumption that price and volume are two most relevant factors in determining the future direction and behaviour of a particular stock or market. The investor will have the question in mind that in trading period which stock should be buy, how much to be buy and when to sell or to hold for future date to gain the maximum profit. So this research helps in making appropriate discussion for short term traders. This study aims to analyse the trends of stock price movement of twelve companies from three different sectors during the year 2018-19.

Key Words: Technical analysis, relative strength index, rate of change, simple moving average

I. INTRODUCTION

The method of studying is to analyse securities and investment decision will follows two categories: Fundamental analysis and technical analysis. In fundamental analysis it analysis the company value theoretically for the purpose of long term investment and also analysis the economy, industry and company based information in detail. But in technical analysis it will only studies the demand and supply in a market. The main aim is study the technical indicator by was various database. It focuses on short term investment as intraday trading where the trading should be done within a day. Technical analysis will use various tool to predict market activity and by the support of chart it will represent the data to identify the pattern of future activity. Technical analysis will help the investor to evaluate strength and weakness of the securities.

Need of the Study:

This study involves technical analysis method to analyze the stock, with the help of technical tool are simple moving average like 7days and 12days and also ROC, RSI it will help to analysis the day trader and short term investor to make right decision to invest the money in stock which is comparing the price movement with the help of above technique. These tools are used to check daily price movement in stock market.

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Improving equity, diversity, and inclusion in academia

Omar dewidar.

1 Bruyere Research Institute, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON Canada

Nour Elmestekawy

2 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON Canada

Vivian Welch

3 School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON Canada

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There are growing bodies of evidence demonstrating the benefits of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) on academic and organizational excellence. In turn, some editors have stated their desire to improve the EDI of their journals and of the wider scientific community. The Royal Society of Chemistry established a minimum set of requirements aimed at improving EDI in scholarly publishing. Additionally, several resources were reported to have the potential to improve EDI, but their effectiveness and feasibility are yet to be determined. In this commentary we suggest six approaches, based on the Royal Society of Chemistry set of requirements, that journals could implement to improve EDI. They are: (1) adopt a journal EDI statement with clear, actionable steps to achieve it; (2) promote the use of inclusive and bias-free language; (3) appoint a journal’s EDI director or lead; (4) establish a EDI mentoring approach; (5) monitor adherence to EDI principles; and (6) publish reports on EDI actions and achievements. We also provide examples of journals that have implemented some of these strategies, and discuss the roles of peer reviewers, authors, researchers, academic institutes, and funders in improving EDI.

Editors, reviewers, researchers, funders, and academic institutions collectively act as gatekeepers of our disciplines. Their unique positions enable ethical publication practices and the setting of rigorous research standards. Frequently, these stakeholders are tasked with making critical judgements that can help progress our fields. In some cases, these judgements may be unintentionally biased and possibly fueled by the spread of misinformation.

The academic publication process is built on objectivity [ 1 ], gender and socio-cultural neutrality [ 2 ], and respect for human and animal rights. Hence, equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are essential in publication processes, among other academic spaces. However for the purpose of this According to the Editors Association of Canada [ 3 ], equity refers to recognizing the existence of “identity-based advantages and barriers” as well as “working to correct and address this imbalance.” They also define diversity as “increasing the presence of people of diverse identities” in the editorial process and inclusion as “creating an environment where all those with diverse identities are welcomed and valued”.

Given the ‘publish or perish’ nature of academia, the role of Journals and editors in propagating the cycle of injustice in this space is amplified [ 4 ]. There is evidence for a higher rejection rate of papers from traditionally under-represented groups [ 4 , 5 ]. These decisions can heavily impact such individuals, resulting in poorer career progression due to fewer publications and a lower chance of promotional opportunities. The obstruction of career progression contributes to the lack of representation of certain groups in positions of power and leadership: particularly women, individuals living in low-middle income countries and racialized people [ 6 – 12 ]. For example, in oncology research, Caucasian men hold over 70% of editorial leadership positions [ 6 ]. Similar findings were shown in a survey of editors of the Association of College & Research Libraries [ 7 ], and Wiley publishing [ 13 ]. Furthermore, in communication journals, editorial board members from the United States are more than all other world regions pooled together [ 14 ]. It has been hypothesized that overrepresented groups may have implicit biases that stem from historical institutionalized discrimination against individuals from under-represented groups [ 15 , 16 ]. However, the evidence is conflicting. Witteman and colleagues [ 17 ] demonstrated that when controlling for age and domain of research, a gender bias exists in peer review processes that are judging the calibre of the investigator: there is a 4% lower success rate for women. Yet, a more recent large analysis of 145 journals found that the bias is non-existent [ 18 ]. In fact, women led, and co-authored articles were favoured by referees and editors [ 18 ]. Nonetheless, some studies have demonstrated that implicit bias training may lead to modifying behavior [ 19 – 22 ]. Thus, EDI training and other resources, such as unconscious bias [ 23 , 24 ] and indigenous cultural competency training [ 25 , 26 ], should be easily accessible and completed by the editorial teams and authors alike.

Realizing that biases exist in scholarly publishing, The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) established a joint commitment to action on EDI in scholarly publishing. In collaboration with signed partners, they formulated the following six minimum standards for inclusion and diversity in academic publishing: (1) integrate inclusion and diversity in the publishing activities and strategic planning; (2) work on understanding the demographic diversity of individuals at all levels of their publishing process; (3) acknowledge and address the barriers experienced by those who are under-represented among them; (4) define and clearly communicate diversity and inclusion responsibilities at all levels of the publishing process; (5) revise the appointment process for editors and editorial boards as needed, to widen the scope of the captured talent; (6) publicly report diversity and inclusion progress at least once a year [ 27 ]. To date, 52 publishing organizations have committed to this initiative [ 27 ].

It may be argued that editors should not be obliged to ensure that their reviewer pool is geographically distributed, and that their only concern should be recruiting reviewers who are experts of the manuscript content under consideration. However, the lack of diversity in the peer reviewer can make finding reviewers harder [ 28 ]. In addition, there are many benefits to promoting diversity in the publishing processes for the scientific community. Ensuring the representation of individuals from underrepresented populations could facilitate meaningful career growth for these individuals and increase the depth of the content published in the journal. An environment of innovation and creativity could be fostered through the presence of a greater variety of problem-solving approaches [ 4 , 29 ]. Better performance, predictions, and overall results could emerge as problem-solving improves in the presence of a diverse team [ 30 ]. It was found that a significant increase in the citation of articles occurred when the authors who wrote them were of different ethnicities and nationalities [ 30 ]. Additionally, there was an association between the 5-year citation count of published papers and the diversity of people who authored them — ethnic diversity in particular [ 31 ]. For example, when a mandate was instituted in Japan by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University to ensure 50% of all researchers were from other than Japan, the institute saw an increase in academic ranking based on their research output [ 32 ].

Although commitments are in place to improve EDI in journals and publishing [ 33 – 37 ], the effectiveness of these approaches are yet to be determined. We also acknowledge that editor of this journal shared concerns for practical approaches to improving EDI in peer review and journal practices [ 38 ]. In this commentary, we provide practical approaches for editors and journal publishers to improve EDI in academic journals based on the six minimum standards set by the RSC. In Table ​ Table1 1 we also provide examples of journals that implemented some of these strategies. Finally, EDI issues in academia are tightly intertwined with systemic oppression that is integrated in policies and regulations of academic progression. Thus, both a bottom-up and top-down approach are needed to induce change. Subsequently, we reflect on the role of reviewers, researchers, academic institutions, and funding agencies in shaping the academic ecosystem. Figure ​ Figure1 1 presents how these stakeholders contribute to fostering a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive academic community.

Recommendations for improving equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) journals

RSC Royal Society of Chemistry ( https://www.rsc.org/new-perspectives/talent/minimum-standards-for-inclusion-and-diversity-for-scholarly-publishing/ ), EDI Equity, diversity and inclusion

Key model for improving equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) of journals. This figure was generated by the authors using Canva ( https://www.canva.com/ )

The role of journals

Given that the impact of journal policies on compliance to mandates has been demonstrated in several areas, such as clinical trial registration and reporting guidelines [ 45 – 47 ], editors and publishers should articulate a framework that influences the incorporation of EDI. We propose below six approaches that align with the six RSC recommendations for improving EDI in academic publishing.

Increasing diversity and inclusion in scientific publishing enhances excellence and innovation. Adopting a journal diversity statement, with clear, actionable steps to achieve it, is a practical first step for defining the problem and establishing accountability [ 37 ]. Explicitly defining the problem helps ensure that everyone shares the same understanding of it. Moreover, this process engages senior leadership to support EDI principles, making it clear to authors, reviewers, and editors that change is a priority. Several reports show that these recognition schemes provide an impetus for action on EDI which translates to more inclusive environments [ 48 ]. More than 47 publishing organizations have adopted recognition schemes [ 49 ]. Wiley publishing has developed guidance for assisting editors in developing an EDI statement [ 50 ]. The process involves the following three steps: (1) assessing the journal and research community’s needs, (2) identifying action priorities for the journal (I.e., changes in recruitment process, improving the diversity of invited reviewers), and (3) developing an active statement that acknowledges that this process is an ongoing one that will require revisiting on a regular basis to answer unknown questions.

Avoiding the perpetuation of prejudicial beliefs or demeaning attitudes in publishing activities may improve the recruitment of populations experiencing disadvantages. In turn, the journal should promote the use of inclusive and bias-free language in all correspondence and the journal website content [ 51 ]. With changes in language over time, editors should address individuals and or communities as they prefer to describe themselves, their experiences, and practices. For example, a notable addition to the 7 th edition of the America Psychological Association is the recommendation to use the singular “they” to refer to individuals when the identified pronouns are unknown or hypothetical person is irrelevant within the context [ 37 ]. The University of Nottingham reported improvements in the recruitment of female researchers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) when the language of advertised fellowships was checked for gender inclusivity among schemes [ 48 , 52 , 53 ].

When leaders use the power associated with their positions to advocate for EDI this may help support others to eradicate prejudice and discrimination. Editors in chief should prefer to include scholars with underrepresented backgrounds and EDI expertise to lead in EDI advocacy roles. They could, albeit less preferable, nominate one of their associate editors who has an underrepresented background or recruit an individual with expertise on EDI who does not have an underrepresented background. It would be wise to create a consultation committee for the EDI lead composed of underrepresented academics, EDI leaders, and members of the public with unique, lived experiences. The perspectives of underrepresented individuals could be crucial for the team’s success as it would help produce more culturally competent and practical solutions. The responsibilities of the lead could include reviewing journal processes while working with the Editors in chief, raising awareness of unconscious bias among the editorial teams and implementing initiatives that could improve EDI. The lead should also be responsible for developing strategies that would diversify the editorial teams, peer reviewers and authorship as well as monitor the journal’s progress in achieving EDI. The individual or team leading this appointment should review the journal’s recruitment sources and how the journal linguistically composes invitations to join the editorial teams. Of note, experience in the field of EDI and understanding of EDI principles alone are insufficient to achieve these goals. Leaders aiming to take on this role should be creative in developing strategies that align with the journal’s aims and resources.

There is plenty of evidence showing that members of certain populations are underrepresented in editorial roles. This impedes their ability to receive adequate experience to take on leadership positions. The process of finding editorial board members in all disciplines is challenging as is therefore recruiting editors with diverse backgrounds, gender identities, ethnicities and geographical locations would likely prove to be more challenging. However, a diverse and representative team may be more likely to display increased cultural competency based on their more diverse set of lived experiences. Efforts to recruit a representative team should be in place, and deficiencies in diversity should be explicitly acknowledged as a work in progress. Furthermore, all editorial positions should be time limited as any permanent position of power is prone to propagating disparities.

Journals can post open calls for reviewer positions rather than solely depending on personal networks to improve the diversity of their reviewer pool. These advertisements should be checked for inclusivity of their wording as well as the locations of their posting. It should be noted that the use of algorithms or artificial intelligence (AI) to identify reviewers, reinforces negative cycle of bias against researchers in low-middle income countries and marginalized populations [ 54 ]. Therefore, if AI is used, editors should monitor for potential biases, assess, and mitigate them. In addition, journal editors may encourage authors to recommend reviewers from under-represented backgrounds. Populations carrying the greatest burden of health inequities need a stronger voice in the planning and implementation of their health care and the systems meant to support it, yet for the most part, remain excluded from decision-making processes [ 55 , 56 ]. Therefore, when inviting reviewers, it may be beneficial to invite reviewers familiar with the article’s content. Knowledge of the author’s name, institution, professional status, or geographical location may result in unconscious bias and abstract the objectivity of the peer review process. To help minimize unconscious bias, journal editors should consider a double anonymized peer review policy where the peer reviewers are not aware of the manuscript's authors and vice versa [ 37 ].

When candidates for journal positions lack experience, establishing a mentoring approach may be a pragmatic approach to preparing them for the role in the future. Senior members of the editorial teams could team up with more junior members and tailor the mentoring according to their needs. Since mentors are highly likely to come from non-underrepresented groups, mentors should receive unconscious bias training or other EDI training as necessary (i.e microaggressions, anti-racism) before engaging in mentorship activities. Given that most editorial positions are voluntary, mentoring activities need to be encouraged and acknowledged to support their work. Mentors could be rewarded by compensating them for their time or establishing internal awards for mentor excellence that may help in promotions and tenures. The uptake of these strategies by several journals may help establish a community of mentors that could be drawn on for mentorship activities. Undergoing training in research integrity may help prepare them for their roles by engaging with their mentees meaningfully and creating a supportive environment. VIRT2UE Train the trainee program is intended for individuals interested in becoming trainers in research integrity. The program focuses on developing behaviours of high moral standards related to the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and applying them to specific cases and dilemmas.

To identify gaps in diversity, meaningful and accurate data collection on the composition of editors, peer reviewers and authors is required. Journal editors need to systematically collect demographic data to accurately assess journal progress and tailor their goals accordingly. A standard list of questions should be presented to the research community where they can voluntarily provide self-identification data such as career stage, gender, race & ethnicity, and geographical location of the journal community [ 57 ]. As a first step, journals can use the eight identification categories proposed in the questionnaire distributed by the Employment Equity Act and adjust as appropriate. Alternatively, journals may employ external services, such as TOP factor [ 58 ], to monitor journal metrics in implementing EDI principles. Empirical approaches are also needed to determine the effectiveness of the approaches used to improve EDI in academic settings. The UK Research and Innovation summarized interventions, frameworks and outcomes measured to quantitatively monitor changes in EDI interventions. They note the lack of experimental approaches to assess EDI interventions and small sample sizes. Thus, researchers should investigate rigorous approaches to investigate the effectiveness of EDI interventions.

To hold journals accountable for their progress, journals and publishers should make their data on diversity available to the public. Therefore, journals should ensure that they acquire informed consent from participants when collecting their self-identifiable. Their data should be treated with the utmost sensitivity and stored with great care. Although we are not aware of the most appropriate approach to store data, there are ten established rules for storing digital data that journals may apply to safeguard sensitive information [ 59 ]. Journals should only present the data in an aggregated form to ensure the confidentiality of participants.

The role of peer reviewers

Reviewers and journal editors must consider that the author’s first language might not be English. Thus, they must be understanding and try to base their decision on the quality of research rather than the language. If significant language corrections are needed, we suggest directing them to a language service such as SAGE Author Services or Language Editor Services by ElSEVIER and subsequently invite them to resubmit once their manuscript is reviewed. Adjustment may be needed for authors with disabilities or neurodiverse conditions, and peer reviewers should support them accordingly. They may offer them additional feedback, extra time for revisions or arrange a call to discuss feedback.

The role of researchers

The impact of marginalization on the health of marginalized groups is well established [ 60 ]. However, their perspectives are yet to be adequately reflected in evidence bases [ 55 ]. The absence of regularly collected data on outcomes and experiences of under-represented populations limits the relevance of available primary evidence informing evidence-based practice. Populations experiencing inequities need a stronger voice in the planning and the implementation of health care services as well as the systems designed to support them. For this reason, they should be involved in decision-making processes [ 55 , 56 ]. Greater involvement of stakeholders in evidence syntheses can support greater inclusion of social and organizational factors that may influence interventions and review findings [ 61 ]. Furthermore, Incorporating EDI in research ensures that pre-conceived beliefs and eco-chamber societies are likely avoided, minimizing confirmation bias and increasing the credibility of research findings [ 62 ]. An example of this is The New England Journal of Medicine which requires authors to provide the representativeness of the study group in a table as a Supplementary Appendix [ 63 ]. They also require authors to appropriately report on the representativeness of the patients included in the study and assess the generalizability of the research findings to populations at risk of experiencing inequities.

Reporting guidelines may improve the reporting of research and should be used by researchers [ 64 – 67 ]. Although guidelines such as the SAGER guidelines have recommended sex-specific analyses to obtain more equitable evidence [ 68 ], and several funders have mandated their analyses, such mandates may be insufficient to change reporting practices [ 69 ]. Researchers must demonstrate their commitment to improving equity in research by adhering to equity reporting guidelines such as the extensions of the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) [ 70 ] and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) [ 71 ] more work is needed to assess their impact on reporting.

The role of universities and academic institutions

Students from under-represented groups face several barriers to success when engaging with academia’s traditional measures and systems of evaluation [ 4 , 30 , 72 , 73 ]. A study conducted by Heller and colleagues found that as the GPA score requirements increased in medical schools, in the United States from 2005 to 2009, the diversity of the classes decreased [ 74 ]. This suggests that evaluations heavily based on academic metrics often come at the expense of EDI. Thus, establishing a different definition of student academic excellence may help improve EDI in academic institutions.

Several approaches have succeeded in improving diversity among trainees and early-career researchers [ 75 , 76 ]. However, differential recruitment, retention, and promotion rates across several factors such as age, sex and race are yet to be improved [ 77 – 80 ]. This may be partly due to the narrow focus on citation metrics and publications for the evaluation of these processes [ 30 , 81 , 82 ]. Institutions should award strong mentorship that involve the support of marginalized groups and include tenure or promotion assessments in recruitment. These awards include the National Science Foundation’s Presidential Award for Excellence for Science Math and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM), the Australian Museum Eureka Award, and the Nature Research Awards for Mentoring in Science. Expanding the measures of success to include non-academic metrics would enhance the selection of diverse candidates and set the stage for a diverse, new generation of researchers.

Furthermore, academic course coordinators should consider teaching the curriculum from an EDI perspective by diversifying the reading material of courses as well as the research used to compose the learning material [ 4 ]. Emphasizing diversity in the educational curriculum fosters the inclusion of diverse students, staff, and relevant topics and better engages underrepresented groups through a curriculum that reflects their lived experiences.

The role of funding agencies

Several funding agencies, such as NIH [ 83 ] and CIHR [ 84 ] have acknowledged the importance of equity research. This is integral for improving academia as research funding is indispensable in an academic’s career. Including diversity factors as a scorable criterion may improve research since several studies have shown that diverse teams produce more innovative, creative, and impactful science [ 81 , 85 , 86 ]. Funding agencies could also create grants dedicated to underrepresented scholars to allow more opportunities for them and potentially eliminate the funding disparity in research. Examples include the Mental Health Dissertation Research Grant to Increase Diversity funded by the National Institute of Health [ 87 ] and the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) funded by the National Science Foundation [ 88 ]. Funding agencies could also consider instituting a minimum number of scholars from underrepresented populations as reviewers on funding panels [ 81 ]. We acknowledge that this may introduce a “diversity tax” where a burden may be placed on marginalized scholars. However, it is essential to note that the “diversity tax” becomes problematic when the positions and work done are not career enhancing. There needs to be more work on incentivising leadership positions for representatives of marginalized populations in terms of academic value and career progression.

Conclusions

Journal editors cannot change the culture of academic societies alone since they are constrained by a broader system. Therefore, we advocate for consolidated action for improving EDI by using a systems approach that involves journal publishers, researchers, academic institutions, and funders. We acknowledge the lack of studies that show the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving EDI. However, we believe that journals adhering to the minimum standards set by RSC and following the guidance suggested in this paper may help journals obtain data that can help monitor their EDI progress. In writing this commentary, we reviewed it for inclusivity and bias-free language. We urge journal editors to develop evaluation plans to measure the effects of EDI interventions in improving the editorial culture using innovative methodological approaches.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Mario Malički, the editor in chief for guiding this commentary with his critical review and thought provoking questions. We would like to thank the research community for supporting the integration of equity, diversity, and inclusion principles in editorial and peer review processes.

Authors’ contributions

Omar Dewidar and Vivian Welch conceived this article. Omar Dewidar drafted the first draft. Nour Elmestekawy and Vivian Welch revised the article. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.

No funding was received for this article.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

No ethics approval was required for this article.

Vivian Welch is editor in chief of Campbell Systematic Reviews. Omar Dewidar and Nour Elmestekawy declare no competing interests.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• Study Protocol
• Open access
• Published: 22 April 2024

Implementation and early effects of medicaid policy interventions to promote racial equity in pregnancy and early childhood outcomes in Pennsylvania: protocol for a mixed methods study

• Marian Jarlenski 1 ,
• Evan Cole 1 ,
• Christine McClure 1 ,
• Sarah Sanders 2 ,
• Marquita Smalls 2 &
• Dara D Méndez 2  

BMC Health Services Research volume  24 , Article number:  498 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

There are large racial inequities in pregnancy and early childhood health within state Medicaid programs in the United States. To date, few Medicaid policy interventions have explicitly focused on improving health in Black populations. Pennsylvania Medicaid has adopted two policy interventions to incentivize racial health equity in managed care (equity payment program) and obstetric service delivery (equity focused obstetric bundle). Our research team will conduct a mixed-methods study to investigate the implementation and early effects of these two policy interventions on pregnancy and infant health equity.

Qualitative interviews will be conducted with Medicaid managed care administrators and obstetric and pediatric providers, and focus groups will be conducted among Medicaid beneficiaries. Quantitative data on healthcare utilization, healthcare quality, and health outcomes among pregnant and parenting people will be extracted from administrative Medicaid healthcare data. Primary outcomes are stakeholder perspectives on policy intervention implementation (qualitative) and timely prenatal care, pregnancy and birth outcomes, and well-child visits (quantitative). Template analysis methods will be applied to qualitative data. Quantitative analyses will use an interrupted time series design to examine changes over time in outcomes among Black people, relative to people of other races, before and after adoption of the Pennsylvania Medicaid equity-focused policy interventions.

Findings from this study are expected to advance knowledge about how Medicaid programs can best implement policy interventions to promote racial equity in pregnancy and early childhood health.

Peer Review reports

Rates of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality in the United States far exceed those of comparable nations [ 1 ]. The burdens of racist policies have produced vastly worse outcomes for Black and Native, relative to White, populations [ 2 ]. For example, Black and Native birthing people are more than three times as likely to experience pregnancy-related mortality compared to white birthing people [ 3 ]. For every pregnancy-related death, there are thousands of birthing people who experience severe morbidity; including stark racial disparities where Black populations are more likely to experience stroke or serious cardiovascular events sending them on a trajectory of adverse health outcomes beyond pregnancy [ 4 , 5 ]. We also see similar racial inequities for infant mortality and morbidity. These racial inequities are not adequately explained by individual behaviors or other socio-economic factors, but are a complex intersection of factors shaped by structural and social determinants [ 2 , 6 ], policies and institutions carrying out such policies [ 7 ]. There is a long history of structural racism that has resulted in practices and policies that have had a detrimental impact on Black and Indigenous populations in the United States [ 8 ].

State Medicaid programs are the largest single payer for pregnancy and birth in the US, covering 68% of births to Black people [ 9 ]. As such, Medicaid programs have great potential to implement structural interventions to advance racial equity in healthcare and health outcomes during pregnancy and postpartum [ 10 ]. Historically, Medicaid policies have promoted equality, that is, providing equal benefits to all regardless of the distribution of need [ 11 ]. An equity-focused policy approach, however, will direct resources toward improving health and well-being among those with the greatest need [ 12 ]. Unfortunately, a vast body of research conducted among Medicaid-enrolled populations shows that healthcare systems do not provide the same quality of obstetric care to Black people and other people of color, relative to white people [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ].

Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program is the fourth-largest in the United States, with 3.5 million people enrolled and expenditures of $35.1 billion [ 19 , 20 ]. Past research in the Pennsylvania Medicaid program has demonstrated Black people were less able to access prenatal and postpartum care relative to those in other race groups [ 15 ]. Reporting from the Pennsylvania Maternal Mortality Commission shows that in more than half of the cases of pregnancy-associated deaths, the decadents were enrolled in Medicaid [ 21 ]. Similar to national figures, pregnancy-associated death was far more common among Black people vs. those of other races ( [ 21 ].

To ameliorate these racial disparities, Pennsylvania Medicaid is currently implementing two novel policies with the goal to advance racial equity in pregnancy and child health. The first, the equity incentive payment program, was initiated in 2020. The equity incentive payment program makes available approximately $26 million in Medicaid managed care organization (MCO) payments each year to plans that improve access to timely prenatal care and well-child visits among Black beneficiaries. The second is the maternity care bundled payment model, initiated in 2021, designed to provide incentives to obstetric providers across a wide range of pregnancy health outcomes and specifically incentivizes improvements among Black beneficiaries.

Although these policy approaches are unique, it is possible that other state Medicaid programs or other health insurers could learn from the policies and adapt or expand these approaches. Our research team will conduct a mixed-methods study to investigate the implementation and early effects of the two aforementioned policy changes on pregnancy and infant health equity. Our research aims are to: (1) evaluate implementation and early effects of the equity incentive payment program prenatal and early childhood healthcare outcomes and experiences among Black Medicaid beneficiaries; and (2) determine the extent to which an equity-focused maternity care bundled payment model affects racial equity in obstetric care and pregnancy health outcomes. To achieve these aims, we will draw on established partnerships between university researchers, community organizations, and policymakers to collect and analyze data. First, we will collect qualitative data with diverse stakeholders including Medicaid beneficiaries, MCO plan representatives, and pediatric and obstetric care clinicians to study implementation of these equity-focused policy changes. Second, we will use a community-partnered approach to develop a quantitative analysis plan of Medicaid administrative data for an estimated 167,000 birthing person-child dyads to estimate early effects of these policies. Our cross-disciplinary, community-engaged partnerships will enable us to triangulate how the healthcare policy structures of state Medicaid programs can be changed to promote racial equity in health.

Theoretical framework

The proposed research seeks to advance knowledge about the causes of, and structural interventions to improve, health and well-being among Black pregnant and parenting persons and their children in Medicaid. The theoretical model underlying this work is informed by foundational literature from a range of disciplines. First, it incorporates Critical Race Theory and Public Health Critical Race Praxis, which posit structural determinants, such as racism and other forms of oppression (e.g., sexism, classism, poverty), as fundamental causes of adverse social environments that interact to make certain populations more susceptible to illness and resulting in suboptimal health [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. Second, it incorporates political science theory that dominant social definitions of populations shape group empowerment and resulting health policies and material benefits [ 27 ]. Third, it draws on new scholarship suggesting the necessity of studying social welfare policies with a critical race lens centering the beneficiaries’ lived experiences [ 11 , 28 , 29 ].

As depicted in Fig.  1 , our research project identifies both the Medicaid policy environment as well as the beneficiary experiences of the policy environment as upstream factors that influence healthcare organization and beneficiaries’ interaction with healthcare systems. In particular, we aim to facilitate and further enhance the connection between beneficiaries’ lived experiences and policy decision-makers through our collaboration with community partners. This connection can influence the policymaking process that shapes how care is delivered both at the managed care and healthcare provider levels. Healthcare utilization and quality are conceptualized as intermediate outcomes which may influence pregnancy and birth outcomes.

Conceptual model of the evaluation of structural interventions in Medicaid to promote racial equity in pregnancy and child health

Medicaid policy interventions

Nearly all Medicaid beneficiaries in Pennsylvania are enrolled in 1 of 8 Medicaid managed care plans, which manage the physical health care of enrollees and are subject to pay-for-performance requirements for healthcare quality measures. Currently, the Pennsylvania Medicaid program makes available 2% of total payments to MCO plans, contingent on MCO plan performance on 13 different healthcare quality metrics. An equity incentive payment program was added to this reimbursement scheme for two metrics in 2020: timely prenatal care and well-child visit utilization in the first 15 months of life (Fig.  2 ). Specifically, 2/13 (or 0.15%) of total payments are withheld for these two equity-focused metrics. MCO plans are assessed on overall performance and subsequently on the annual improvement on these measures among Black beneficiaries. MCO plans can be penalized (up to -0.12% of total payments) or rewarded (up to + 0.35% of total payments) for their performance on each of these two metrics.

Pennsylvania Medicaid’s health equity incentive payment program will condition payments to managed care organizations based on overall performance as well as improvement among Black beneficiaries

Second, Pennsylvania Medicaid implemented a maternity care bundled payment model in 2021 that considers outcomes among Black beneficiaries (Fig.  3 ). Under maternity care bundled payment models, obstetric providers are incentivized to meet a total cost threshold and quality metrics for prenatal and delivery care [ 30 ]. Specifically, providers and payers agree on a target cost for low- or average-risk perinatal care, including pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum care. If total payments to providers are lower than the target cost while maintaining certain quality metrics, providers and payers share those savings. Under Pennsylvania’s new model, providers are able to achieve shared savings based on quality metric performance, as well as a health equity score reflecting performance on those metrics among Black beneficiaries.

Pennsylvania Medicaid’s equity-focused maternity bundled payment model will allow for shared savings between obstetric care providers and managed care organizations, allowing for extra shared savings among providers whose Black patients experience better outcomes

Qualitative data Collection

To understand the interventions and responses to these policies, as well as related implementation barriers and facilitators, we will conduct interviews with each at least two representatives from each MCO ( n  = 18). We will partner with colleagues from the Department of Human Services (DHS) to identify relevant MCO representatives. Interviews will elucidate MCOs’ perspectives, processes used by MCOs to design their interventions (e.g., review of existing evidence, input from community members or providers who serve them), anticipated effects, and sustainability of these payment policy changes. The goal is for some of the results of these interviews to inform our understanding of the implementation process which will be further explored in the interviews and focus groups with clinicians and Medicaid recipients.

In collaboration with the Community Health Advocates (CHA) program led by Healthy Start Pittsburgh, as well as other community and organizational partners across the state, we will recruit current and former Medicaid beneficiaries for focus group participation. We aim to recruit  ∼  50 community participants and will purposively oversample Black participants and will aim to recruit people of all ethnicities who identify as Black and multi-racial in order to achieve our aims of elucidating the experiences of Black parenting and pregnant people in Medicaid. Inclusion criteria are: current pregnancy or pregnant within the past 2 years; current or former enrollment in Pennsylvania Medicaid and/or Healthy Start; and ability to complete the interview in English.

Finally, we will partner with colleagues from DHS to identify pediatric and obstetric health professionals for interviews regarding the maternity bundled payment program and key outcomes related to the equity incentive payment. We will also use Medicaid administrative data to identify providers who serve Black beneficiaries and invite them to participate. We will aim to interview at least 20 obstetric and pediatric healthcare professionals to elucidate their perspectives on how structural racism in medicine affects patient outcomes, and the types of Medicaid policy changes that should be implemented.

We developed separate focus group/interview guides for community members, MCO leaders, and healthcare professionals. Each interview guide consists of open-ended questions to elucidate participants’ experiences with Medicaid; desired policy changes in Medicaid (among beneficiary participants); perceived steps that would be useful to combat anti-Black racism in healthcare and social services (especially among Black participants); and perspectives about the new Medicaid policies. Additionally, the interview guides ask demographic questions regarding gender identity, race, and ethnicity. We will first pilot-test the guide with our research partners and Healthy Start CHAs for clarity of question wording. All interviews will take place in-person in a private office space, or over the phone or videoconference, according to participants’ preferences and COVID-19 protocols. The interviewer will describe study objectives to each participant, obtain consent, and each interview will be audio-recorded and the interviewer will take notes throughout. Interview audio recordings will be transcribed verbatim, and transcripts spot-checked against the audio recordings for accuracy. The audio recording files will then be deleted to protect confidentiality of participants.

Qualitative data analysis

Study data will be analyzed and reported using the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) Framework [ 31 ]. To analyze data, we will use template analysis, which combines features of deductive content analysis and inductive grounded theory, thereby allowing us to obtain specific information while also capturing any new or unanticipated themes [ 32 ]. Two coders will separately code the first 3 interview transcripts, meet to compare codes, discuss inconsistency in coding approaches, and then alter or add codes. This iterative process will be repeated until the coding scheme is fully developed. The coders will independently code all transcripts, and any coding discrepancies will be resolved via discussion. Once coding is complete, synthesis of content will begin by organizing codes under broader domains (meta-codes) as well as sub-codes. The primary analysis will be to convey qualitative data, including the use of illustrative quotes.

Quantitative healthcare data and analysis

Administrative healthcare data from the Pennsylvania Medicaid program, with linked birthing person-child dyads, will be used to create our quantitative analytic data. Medicaid data include a census of enrollment, hospital, outpatient/professional, pharmaceutical, and provider data for all beneficiaries in the Pennsylvania Medicaid program. Importantly, data contain self-reported race and ethnicity that is provided at the time of Medicaid enrollment (< 2% missing); as well as time-varying data on 9-digit ZIP code of residence. Data also include the amounts paid from Medicaid MCOs to healthcare providers for all medical services. Table  1 shows baseline data from Pennsylvania Medicaid-enrolled persons with a livebirth delivery in 2019, overall and stratified by race of the birthing person. We will also conduct sensitivity analyses to examine dyads that are multi-racial.

We will employ a comparative interrupted time series (ITS) analyses with a nonequivalent comparison group to estimate policy effects. Specifically, we will evaluate: (1) the extent to which the equity incentive payment program improved timely prenatal care and well-child visits among Black beneficiaries, relative to those of other races; and (2) the extent to which healthcare provider participation in the equity-focused maternity bundled payment model improved healthcare and health outcomes among Black beneficiaries, relative to those of other races.

For Aim 1, outcomes include binary measures of initiating prenatal care in the first trimester, and children receiving at least 6 well-child visits in the first six months of life. We will compare outcomes among Black beneficiaries relative to those of other racial groups, post- relative to pre- implementation of the equity incentive payment program. For Aim 2, outcomes include a composite of prenatal care quality measures (social determinants of health screening, prenatal and postpartum depression screening and follow-up, immunization, screening and treatment for substance use disorders, postpartum visit attendance), gestational age and birthweight, and severe maternal morbidity [ 33 ]. For both aims, multivariable regression models will control for maternal age, ethnicity, parity, ZIP code of residence, MCO plan enrollment, Medicaid eligibility category (expansion, pregnancy, disability, or others), and indices of obstetric and pediatric clinical comorbidities [ 34 , 35 ].

Sensitivity analyses

Analyses are designed to estimate early effects of the policies and should be interpreted alongside the qualitative results regarding policy implementation and beneficiary experiences. One assumption of ITS analyses is that our comparison groups approximate a counterfactual scenario for the intervention groups [ 36 , 37 , 38 ]. Although trends in Black-White inequities in pregnancy and child outcomes have, unfortunately, persisted over time [ 39 ], the COVID-19 pandemic has differentially burdened Black and Latina/x people relative to other race and ethnic groups [ 40 , 41 ]. Effects of the pandemic on pregnancy outcomes are only just beginning of what is to be explored [ 42 ]. It is therefore possible that we will not be able to disentangle policy effects from effects of COVID-19. To address this limitation, we will employ area-level rates of COVID-19 infection as control variables and for Aim 1 (equity incentive payment) we will conduct a sub-analysis investigating trends in 2021 vs. 2020. We chose to evaluate outcomes for Aim 2 (maternity care bundled payment) only in 2021, comparing the statistical intervention of race*provider. Finally, our qualitative analyses will provide context on differential impacts of COVID-19, which will inform interpretation of the quantitative results.

This study was approved by the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board (Study # 23090108).

This mixed-methods research will investigate the extent to which changes in the Pennsylvania Medicaid program are associated with improvements in access to medical care and health outcomes among Black pregnant and birthing persons and their children. Our past research found that Black childbearing people in Pennsylvania Medicaid consistently experienced worse healthcare and health outcomes, compared to those of other racial and ethnic groups [ 43 , 44 ]. Racism in healthcare and other systems manifests in systematically worse access to and quality of care and other services for Black childbearing people [ 8 ]. In addition to suboptimal healthcare experiences, historical policies and practices such as residential redlining and segregation have resulted in lower wealth attainment in Black communities resulting in inequities in neighborhood factors and perinatal health [ 45 , 46 , 47 ].

The policies under study involve modifying common Medicaid reimbursement arrangements– namely, pay-for-performance programs and maternity care bundled payments. The policies are modified to embed financial incentives for Medicaid health plans and healthcare providers to improve the quality of care and health outcomes for Black pregnant and parenting persons and their children. These are the first such payment policies, to our knowledge, that explicitly aim to promote racial health equity with an explicit focus on addressing inequities that affect Black and Indigenous populations in Pennsylvania.

Interest from policymakers in payment reforms to improve health equity has increased recently; however, information on the implementation and effects of such models is sparse [ 48 , 49 ]. Although several state Medicaid programs have adopted maternity care bundled payment models, prior models have not considered racial inequities in pregnancy outcomes [ 30 , 50 ]. In 2012, Oregon adopted regional health equity coalitions as part of the state Medicaid program’s transition to Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs). CCOs were required and given support to develop strategies that would address racial health disparities within the Medicaid population, and the regional health equity coalitions included underrepresented stakeholders to guide CCOs in the development of these interventions. While CCOs did reduce Black-white differences in primary care utilization and access to care within 3 years of policy implementation, it did not impact disparities in emergency department utilization [ 51 ]. The current research project will add to the extant evidence on how Medicaid programs can use policy to promote racial health equity.

Our study is limited in investigating the direct effects of the pandemic on racial inequities in perinatal and infant health and the intersections between the effects of the pandemic and the effects of the aforementioned Medicaid policies. However, we will have the ability to look at changes in outcomes over time. Additionally, these payment reform interventions focus largely on transforming the financing and delivery of healthcare, drawing attention to the structural and social determinants of health in the healthcare system. It is estimated that medical care contributes 10–20% to health outcomes; health and well-being are also shaped by factors such as environmental and socioeconomic conditions [ 52 ].

This study will contribute to the current body of knowledge about the recent interventions in Medicaid focused on racial equity. Specifically, findings will shed light on how the equity-focused obstetric care policies are being implemented and provide an evaluation of effects on health outcomes. These results can be used for future adaptions of the policy interventions or to inform the adoption of such equity-focused policies in different geographic regions of the United States.

Data availability

No datasets were generated or analysed during the current protocol study.

Abbreviations

Managed Care Organization

Community Health Advocate

Coordinated Care Organization

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This study received funding from the National Institute of Nursing Research under award R01NR020670. The funder had no role in the study design, data collection or analysis, or decision to publish the study.

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Here’s How Data Can Help Unlock Education Equity

Tc’s renzhe yu, alex bowers, and youmi suk break down their ongoing, different approaches to the same goal: high quality education for all.

Now more than ever, educational equity — ensuring all students have access to meaningful educational opportunities, from college preparation and career assistance to support resources to civic participation — is crucial across America. However, the journey towards educational equity demands a multifaceted approach, with cross-collaboration and data at the helm. That’s where a core aspect of TC’s educator preparation and overall ethos comes into play, seeking to narrow the opportunity gaps millions of U.S. students face. 

While The Center for Educational Equity , established in 2005, focuses on research and policy around fair school funding and civic participation, three TC faculty members are finding unique ways to leverage data for equity. Renzhe Yu , Assistant Professor of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining, is leveraging data analytics to uncover the unintended consequences of the rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence. Alex Bowers , Professor of Education Leadership, is showcasing the power of learning analytics and interoperable data sets to identify and address critical indicators of equity. Youmi Suk , Assistant Professor of Applied Statistics, is harnessing big educational data and cutting-edge machine learning methods to address questions about equity and fairness in educational practice.

Renzhe Yu, Assistant Professor of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining; Alex Bowers, Professor of Education Leadership; Youmi Suk, Assistant Professor of Applied Statistics (Photo: TC Archives)

• To reveal the bias and unintended consequences of generative artificial intelligence , Renzhe Yu performs large-scale data analytics.
• In order to identify issues of equity in a transparent way, Alex Bowers utilizes learning analytics and public data.
• Working to improve test fairness and curriculum planning , Youmi Suk draws connections between psychometrics, causal inference and algorithmic fairness.

(Image: iStock)

How Data Analytics Can Address the Growing Digital Divides

Stemming from Yu’s interest in learning how to “equip ourselves to better address existing issues related to education inequity,” his most pressing research focuses on understanding how the mass adoption of generative artificial intelligence has exacerbated digital divides in schools and institutions. Explored in a forthcoming working paper, the project uses large-scale text data from the education system to examine differences in everyday teaching and learning experiences as well as institutional attitudes toward generative AI.

“There are students who are more tech-savvy, there are instructors who are more experienced in using technologies, there are institutions that are more open-minded…and they have probably taken good advantage of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools in the past year,” explains Yu. But there’s also a significant number of students, parents, instructors, and institutions that don’t have that kind of access or awareness. “Although it’s just one year, the emergence of this technology may have widened these gaps,” says Yu.

To explore this growing divide, Yu and his research team focused on real-world data sources instead of conducting lab-controlled experiments in order to see how these relationships are playing out in real life. Because of his familiarity with the tech industry and the still-common impulse to innovate without considering the way that entire populations can be left behind, Yu says, “it’s really important to identify these unintended consequences in the early phase of life for these technologies.”

Yu’s other research interest in algorithmic bias — where he has long been exploring how algorithms used for decision making are treating learners differently based on race or other socio-demographic markers — is also made more urgent by the emergence of generative AI tools because if biased algorithms are “having dynamic conversations with students, [as is the case with generative AI,] the negative consequences of any bias in the process would be even more concerning.”

Ultimately, Yu hopes that his work provides perspective that is often ignored in the innovation process in order to create an education system that achieves equity with the help of advanced technology. 

How Data Can Inform Equity Efforts in School Policy and Conversation

Meanwhile, Bowers is looking at new ways school leaders can use reliable, evidence-based data practices to support equity efforts in schools nationwide. “One of my goals is to help bring communities together around the data that already exists for them—that’s already available, and help empower those communities,” he explains.

His recent work focuses on building collaboration with urban schools to identify data-driven equity practices and outcomes in education. In using a multidimensional framework, Bowers is hoping to facilitate more meaningful discussions with school communities by moving away from stigmatizing variables like standardized test scores and graduation rates.

“I think school districts are excited to have a definition of equity that they can bring into these community conversations, both with the school board, but also with teachers, parents, students.”

The project is fueled by his earlier research , which explores the value of interoperable, equitable datasets, along with a report that he co-authored with the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP). The comprehensive report details the 16 indicators for assessing equity in education, including academic outcomes like test scores, graduation rates, behavioral data, and opportunities such as student engagement, access to quality learning, pre-K experiences, and more.These indicators give administrators and teachers a more transparent lens to examine school performance.

“It can help us move into a framework of, "How are we serving our students?" "Are we serving our communities?" It's moving away from fixating on the gaps and the outcomes and [instead] trying to problem solve as a collaborative opportunity through which we can bring in existing data.”

How Interdisciplinary Approaches to Analyzing Data Can Promote Fairness

For clearer reading.

Causal Inference: An interdisciplinary subfield that determines the cause of an observed effect by considering assumptions, design and estimation strategies.

Psychometrics: A subfield of psychology centered on theories and applications of measurement, assessment and testing.

A leading researcher exploring test accommodation effectiveness, Suk takes a multi-pronged approach to her main research goal of “developing and applying quantitative methods to address practical and important problems in the educational, social, and behavioral sciences.” One of her central projects is forging a connection between test fairness, a field of study that has been developed over 60 years, and algorithmic fairness, an emerging field with high stakes as algorithmic models are utilized in all aspects of life. 

“We can leverage the people, the methods and the concepts developed in test fairness in order to facilitate understanding of algorithmic fairness,” says Suk who is incorporating psychometrics and causal inference concepts into her work. “And it can go both ways. If there's any new discussion happening around algorithm fairness, we can leverage that discussion to make assessments and tests fairer.” As a part of this work, Suk is crafting new frameworks to investigate test fairness on the individual level instead of on the group level, based on the discussions on individual fairness within the algorithmic fairness research.

Her work is also directly informing her recent research on fair and personalized math curriculum recommendations for high school students, funded by the National Science Foundation. It’s known that students get the most benefit from personalized recommendations but “we have to be aware there may be some unconscious bias [in the recommendations],” explains Suk. To address this, Suk is applying algorithmic fairness constraints to create more equitable recommendations for high school students.

Through her varied research, Suk ultimately hopes to “create equitable and fair testing environments for all students and personalized curriculum plans that empower every student to succeed.”

— Sherri Gardner and Jaqueline Teschon

Tags: Evaluation & Learning Analytics Bias Education Leadership Evaluation & Learning Analytics

Programs: Applied Statistics Cognitive Science in Education Education Leadership Learning Analytics Measurement and Evaluation

Departments: Human Development Organization & Leadership

Published Monday, Apr 22, 2024

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Expectations of future policy impact markets more than rate announcements: RBI paper

As per the regression analysis, repo rate surprises, as captured by the target factor, have almost no effect on equity returns..

Indian equity markets are affected more by the changes in the market’s expectations of future monetary policy than the policy rate surprise on the day the Reserve Bank of India announces the policy, according to a working paper released by the RBI.

This is in agreement with the conventional thinking that equity markets are forward-looking, the paper said. “We also find that volatility in equity markets is affected by both target factor (announcement of the policy) and path factor (expectations about the policy) as markets digest the policy announcements and traders adjust their portfolios throughout the day,” the RBI analysis prepared by RBI officials said.

“Using an alternative specification to examine the potential asymmetric impact, we find an increased negative sensitivity of equity returns with respect to the path factor when repo rate is altered vis-à-vis when the rate is left unaltered,” the RBI paper said. For volatility, the sensitivity to the path factor continues to be significant, it said.

According to the paper, while the intraday analysis with narrow windows of 30 and 60 minutes is aimed at controlling for other potential drivers of equity prices, it may be noted that the monetary policy announcements are accompanied by regulatory and developmental measures which can also impact markets. “The sparse trading on occasions in the OIS (overnight indexed swap) markets as well as other domestic and global developments during the narrow window can also impact the analysis,” it said

As per the regression analysis, Repo rate surprises, as captured by the target factor, have almost no effect on equity returns. “The market’s expectations of the future path of monetary policy, as captured by the path factor, however, remain significant. This corroborates the conventional thinking that markets are forward-looking, and the expected path of monetary policy could have implications for the cost of capital for corporates, affecting future earnings, and hence, equity returns,” the RBI analysis said.

Further, equity markets’ volatility is affected by both the target and path factors, as markets digest the policy announcements throughout the day and traders adjust their portfolios. Stock prices react differently when policy rates are altered compared with when policy rates are left unchanged, the paper said. For returns, an increased negative asset price sensitivity with respect to the path factor is observed when the repo rate is altered. For volatility, the sensitivity to the path factor continues to be significant, however, target factor is found to be insignificant, it said.

The RBI analysis covers the period starting with the implicit adoption of a flexible inflation targeting regime in India — from January 2014 to July 2022.

Overnight Indexed Swap (OIS) is an interest rate swap where the floating leg of the swap is linked to an overnight index (MIBOR in case of India), compounded every day over the payment period.

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Gender pay gap in U.S. hasn’t changed much in two decades

The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 20 years or so. In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. These results are similar to where the pay gap stood in 2002, when women earned 80% as much as men.

As has long been the case, the wage gap is smaller for workers ages 25 to 34 than for all workers 16 and older. In 2022, women ages 25 to 34 earned an average of 92 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same age group – an 8-cent gap. By comparison, the gender pay gap among workers of all ages that year was 18 cents.

While the gender pay gap has not changed much in the last two decades, it has narrowed considerably when looking at the longer term, both among all workers ages 16 and older and among those ages 25 to 34. The estimated 18-cent gender pay gap among all workers in 2022 was down from 35 cents in 1982. And the 8-cent gap among workers ages 25 to 34 in 2022 was down from a 26-cent gap four decades earlier.

The gender pay gap measures the difference in median hourly earnings between men and women who work full or part time in the United States. Pew Research Center’s estimate of the pay gap is based on an analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) monthly outgoing rotation group files ( IPUMS ) from January 1982 to December 2022, combined to create annual files. To understand how we calculate the gender pay gap, read our 2013 post, “How Pew Research Center measured the gender pay gap.”

The COVID-19 outbreak affected data collection efforts by the U.S. government in its surveys, especially in 2020 and 2021, limiting in-person data collection and affecting response rates. It is possible that some measures of economic outcomes and how they vary across demographic groups are affected by these changes in data collection.

In addition to findings about the gender wage gap, this analysis includes information from a Pew Research Center survey about the perceived reasons for the pay gap, as well as the pressures and career goals of U.S. men and women. The survey was conducted among 5,098 adults and includes a subset of questions asked only for 2,048 adults who are employed part time or full time, from Oct. 10-16, 2022. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

The  U.S. Census Bureau has also analyzed the gender pay gap, though its analysis looks only at full-time workers (as opposed to full- and part-time workers). In 2021, full-time, year-round working women earned 84% of what their male counterparts earned, on average, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent analysis.

Much of the gender pay gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience. The narrowing of the gap over the long term is attributable in large part to gains women have made in each of these dimensions.

Related: The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap

Even though women have increased their presence in higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, such as professional and managerial positions, women as a whole continue to be overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce. This may contribute to gender differences in pay.

Other factors that are difficult to measure, including gender discrimination, may also contribute to the ongoing wage discrepancy.

Perceived reasons for the gender wage gap

When asked about the factors that may play a role in the gender wage gap, half of U.S. adults point to women being treated differently by employers as a major reason, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2022. Smaller shares point to women making different choices about how to balance work and family (42%) and working in jobs that pay less (34%).

There are some notable differences between men and women in views of what’s behind the gender wage gap. Women are much more likely than men (61% vs. 37%) to say a major reason for the gap is that employers treat women differently. And while 45% of women say a major factor is that women make different choices about how to balance work and family, men are slightly less likely to hold that view (40% say this).

Parents with children younger than 18 in the household are more likely than those who don’t have young kids at home (48% vs. 40%) to say a major reason for the pay gap is the choices that women make about how to balance family and work. On this question, differences by parental status are evident among both men and women.

Views about reasons for the gender wage gap also differ by party. About two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (68%) say a major factor behind wage differences is that employers treat women differently, but far fewer Republicans and Republican leaners (30%) say the same. Conversely, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say women’s choices about how to balance family and work (50% vs. 36%) and their tendency to work in jobs that pay less (39% vs. 30%) are major reasons why women earn less than men.

Democratic and Republican women are more likely than their male counterparts in the same party to say a major reason for the gender wage gap is that employers treat women differently. About three-quarters of Democratic women (76%) say this, compared with 59% of Democratic men. And while 43% of Republican women say unequal treatment by employers is a major reason for the gender wage gap, just 18% of GOP men share that view.

Pressures facing working women and men

Family caregiving responsibilities bring different pressures for working women and men, and research has shown that being a mother can reduce women’s earnings , while fatherhood can increase men’s earnings .

Employed women and men are about equally likely to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially and to be successful in their jobs and careers, according to the Center’s October survey. But women, and particularly working mothers, are more likely than men to say they feel a great deal of pressure to focus on responsibilities at home.

About half of employed women (48%) report feeling a great deal of pressure to focus on their responsibilities at home, compared with 35% of employed men. Among working mothers with children younger than 18 in the household, two-thirds (67%) say the same, compared with 45% of working dads.

When it comes to supporting their family financially, similar shares of working moms and dads (57% vs. 62%) report they feel a great deal of pressure, but this is driven mainly by the large share of unmarried working mothers who say they feel a great deal of pressure in this regard (77%). Among those who are married, working dads are far more likely than working moms (60% vs. 43%) to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially. (There were not enough unmarried working fathers in the sample to analyze separately.)

About four-in-ten working parents say they feel a great deal of pressure to be successful at their job or career. These findings don’t differ by gender.

Gender differences in job roles, aspirations

Overall, a quarter of employed U.S. adults say they are currently the boss or one of the top managers where they work, according to the Center’s survey. Another 33% say they are not currently the boss but would like to be in the future, while 41% are not and do not aspire to be the boss or one of the top managers.

Men are more likely than women to be a boss or a top manager where they work (28% vs. 21%). This is especially the case among employed fathers, 35% of whom say they are the boss or one of the top managers where they work. (The varying attitudes between fathers and men without children at least partly reflect differences in marital status and educational attainment between the two groups.)

In addition to being less likely than men to say they are currently the boss or a top manager at work, women are also more likely to say they wouldn’t want to be in this type of position in the future. More than four-in-ten employed women (46%) say this, compared with 37% of men. Similar shares of men (35%) and women (31%) say they are not currently the boss but would like to be one day. These patterns are similar among parents.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on March 22, 2019. Anna Brown and former Pew Research Center writer/editor Amanda Barroso contributed to an earlier version of this analysis. Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

What is the gender wage gap in your metropolitan area? Find out with our pay gap calculator

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Carolina Aragão is a research associate focusing on social and demographic trends at Pew Research Center

Women have gained ground in the nation’s highest-paying occupations, but still lag behind men

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Computer Science > Software Engineering

Title: enhancing legal compliance and regulation analysis with large language models.

Abstract: This research explores the application of Large Language Models (LLMs) for automating the extraction of requirement-related legal content in the food safety domain and checking legal compliance of regulatory artifacts. With Industry 4.0 revolutionizing the food industry and with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) reshaping privacy policies and data processing agreements, there is a growing gap between regulatory analysis and recent technological advancements. This study aims to bridge this gap by leveraging LLMs, namely BERT and GPT models, to accurately classify legal provisions and automate compliance checks. Our findings demonstrate promising results, indicating LLMs' significant potential to enhance legal compliance and regulatory analysis efficiency, notably by reducing manual workload and improving accuracy within reasonable time and financial constraints.

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arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .