Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative

Hi Jeremy,

I would include the six 2009 JAE Conference Papers available at
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/jae/conference_papers.php, which build on the 2001 JAE literature reviews.

I think it depends on what they want to do. I like the general design stuff by Kinney and Libby, Bloomfield, and Nelson (I don’t think you can ever have to much research design), but otherwise I would guide them to their interests. We are in very preliminary way collecting this information here . We are trying to define accounting research for pre-Ph.D. students and then guide them to literature reviews and overviews of the different streams of accounting research. Feel free to add an article to the “wiki” if you think it would be good for pre-Ph.D. students.

The 2009 JAE conference website has more recent review papers
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/jae/conference_papers.php

Session I – Dechow, Ge, Schrand
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/jae/pdf/Session_I_Dechow_Ge_Schrand.pdf

Session II – Armstrong, Guay, Weber
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/jae/pdf/Session_II_Armstrong_Guay_Weber.pdf

Session III – Hanlon, Heitzman
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/jae/pdf/Session_III_Hanlon_Heitzman.pdf

Session IV – Beyer, Cohen, Lys, Walther
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/jae/pdf/Session_IV_Beyer_Cohen_Lys_Walther.pdf

Session V – Richardson, Tuna, Wysocki
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/jae/pdf/Session_V_Richardson_Tuna_Wysocki.pdf

Session VI – Kothari, Ramanna, Skinner
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/jae/pdf/Session_VI_Kothari_Ramanna_Skinner.pdf

These reviews, which cite the more seminal papers for the topics they discuss, also can be used investigate further an area you find interesting

But as David mentioned, if there is an area you might be interested in for research, that might be a better use of your time because you will eventually read all of the review papers in your seminars anyway.

If you are pretty set on doing behavioral stuff then Sarah Bonner’s book provides a really good review or you can pick some papers from a good JDM syllabus like this one http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/morewedg/88703.pdf

I have a suggestion of a paper that is very easy to read while quite illustrative of the sorts of issues accounting research might focus on. It is by Bill Kinney in the March 1989 issue of Accounting Horizons. At the AAA annual meeting that year, some folks were apparently whining that accounting research was not affecting practice. Bill provides a very useful discussion of what positive research (as opposed to normative research) can do, and how the results of the research can be quite useful in teaching and practice.

I think incoming PhD students often hear of the trade-off between research and teaching (professors do not complete as much research in a teaching semester). But they need to hear the complementary aspects as well. Kinney’s paper is great in this regard.

The paper is focused on the big picture and cannot offer the detailed and lengthy reviews of a specific research area mentioned by other comments on this post. But I think if potential students start with the big picture, then they can better appreciate the details.