Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative

As I’ve been preparing to enter a PhD program, several professors have recommended that I find an “area of expertise” such as statistics, datasets, writing, experimental design, SAS, etc. Obviously there are a lot of factors that go into this decision, the first of which probably being what I enjoy most and the second being what [...] Read more > >

Just this morning, a team of researchers went live with a website that ranks accounting programs’ research by topic and methodology. If you’ve ever wondered which accounting programs are the strongest in analytical methodology, based on published research in the past 6, 12, or 20 years by faculty currently in the program, this site can [...] Read more > >

On Tuesday, January 12th we had a Round Table Event with Jim Leisenring from the IASB. To view the archived video and a brief summary of the event, click here. Additional information about Jim and this Round Table Event can be found here. Follow-up comments from this event can be found here. Read more > >

I spent a good part of the weekend reading PhD files.  It seems like a fairly strong year, perhaps because the economy has closed out other opportunities.  (Many applicants hail from Wall Street).  I’d love to hear your impressions of any application pools you have seen.  But if you are one of the students who [...] Read more > >

On Saturday January 23, I will be moderating a panel discussion entitled, “Practice-Relevant Researchable Accounting Issues: Practitioners’ Views.”  The panelists are John Hepp, Partner with Grant Thornton, Bob Laux, Senior Director of Financial Accounting and Reporting at Microsoft Corporation, and Scott Taub, managing director of Financial Reporting Advisors and former Deputy Chief Accountant of the [...] Read more > >

Jim Leisenring’s remarks at yesterday’s roundtable were great.  In the portion related to the interaction of research and standard setting, he reminded us of two papers in Accounting Horizons on the interaction: “Academic accounting research and the standard setting process” by Katherine Schipper and “Accounting research: On the relevance of research to practice” by Jim [...] Read more > >

* UPDATE: The archived video is shown above. Please note that the welcome screen is displayed for the first 11 minutes and 10 seconds. You’ll want to skip to 11:10 in the video to begin seeing the discussion. We just finished a great Roundtable with Jim Leisenring from the IASB. We will get the video online [...] Read more > >

I’ve often heard of academics heading off to do an academic fellowship. Several, upon return, have commented on how the fellowship helped them connect with urgent issues, charge their batteries, and get ideas and resources for research. Fellowship opportunities are diverse in their functions and duration. Firms, standard setters, enforcement agencies, etc. are often interested in [...] Read more > >

On Tuesday, Dec 15th, 4 pm ET, we will be joined by Paul Zarowin. Paul Zarowin is a professor at New York University and an Editor at The Accounting Review. The topic of this session is earnings management, and Paul is going to provide us with a high level review of this literature and the [...] Read more > >

On Tuesday, Nov 17th, 4 pm ET, we will be joined by Susan Krische (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).  Susan recently returned from an academic fellowship with the Office of the Chief Accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission.  In light of her experience at the SEC, Susan will be leading a discussion on how [...] Read more > >

Yesterday (September 10, 2009), Rob Bloomfield posted regarding a legal perspective on FASB Accounting Standards Codification Topic 450 (FAS 5 – Accounting for Contingencies) and proposed changes in the disclosure rules for litigation-related contingencies.  This post relates to both the FAS 5 issue as well as an earlier discussion regarding conducting research with the FASB. While serving [...] Read more > >

We had a record audience for today’s talk with Steve Kachelmeier:  almost 50 people on the web and 30 people in Second Life.  And no one had to get stuck in an airport.  If you missed it, just go to our LIVE page and follow the instructions to see his talk ‘on demand’. In other news, [...] Read more > >

The Author As indicated below, Steve Kachelmeier, Senior Editor of The Accounting Review, will be joining us for a Round Table discussion on Wednesday, August 19th at 11am ET. For preparation, I would strongly recommend that you take a look at this fascinating (and very easy-reading) essay by former editor of the American Economic Review, Preston McAffee, [...] Read more > >

Steve Kachelemeier, Senior Editor of The Accounting Review, will join us on Wednesday, August 19th, at 11am ET.  As usual, Steve will take a few minutes to make his opening points, and then we will turn to Q&A.  Please come prepared with questions, and feel free to suggest some in the comment thread below. To get [...] Read more > >

Please Don't Do This To Us! I am not sure faculty ever face a more challenging environment for presenting a paper than the AAA concurrent sessions.  You have 15 or 20 minutes to convey months or years of technical work to a diverse audience — some of them know more about the topic than you do, [...] Read more > >

Since June 1, 2008, I’ve had the honor and privilege of serving as an editor of The Accounting Review. In this role, I get to see a lot of papers in the financial-archival area, although there are four other editors plus senior editor Steve Kachelmeier also looking at papers in this area, so I [...] Read more > >

Office Hours next week will feature a conversation with Anthony Hopwood about what the financial crisis means for accounting (and finance) researchers.  We will be changing our schedule a little bit:  the session will be at 11am ET, Tuesday, July 14th. Information about getting to the session can be found here. Anthony has a most impressive [...] Read more > >

I have almost recovered from the AAA Doctoral Consortium.  This 4-day marathon gave some 90 or so doctoral students the chance to hear from over a dozen faculty on both research topics and on career advice from (in no particular order): Jim Hunton Chris Ittner Greg Waymire Bob Yetman Linda Bamber Hollis Ashbaugh-Skaife Paul Healy Jagan Krishnan Don Moser Karen Nelson Vernon Richardson Sonja Rego We were joined [...] Read more > >