Exciting new concepts and quantitative methodologies have infused accounting as an academic field. These developments have aligned accounting with economics and finance more closely than ever before. Our program is geared towards providing an interdisciplinary approach to capital markets research in accounting.
Learn about our PhD Program and curriculum.
David Aboody
Professor UCLA
Professor Aboody joined the UCLA Anderson faculty in 1995 after completing his PhD in Accounting at Berkeley Haas. His research area is empirical financial accounting. It seeks to address issues important to investors, market regulators, and standard-setters. There are two closely related streams: one set of papers studies the impact of executive compensation, particularly executive stock options, on strategic decisions of managers and the value of the firm. These decisions include the timing of disclosure, the choice of accounting methods, and corporate cash payout policies. The other set of papers examines the effects of accounting discretion on the value of the firm and behavior of managers. A central tradeoff in providing such discretion is between communication to capital markets and opportunism by managers.
Ron Kaznik
Professor Stanford University
Ron Kasznik is Professor of Accounting at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. Ron joined the GSB in 1995 after receiving his PhD in Accounting from Berkeley Haas. Professor Kasznik specializes in financial accounting and its interactions with the capital markets. Specifically, his research looks at the determinants and outcomes of corporate voluntary disclosures, with particular emphasis on incentives to manage expectations of future firm performance. His research contributes to many contemporary financial reporting issues, such as the accounting treatment of employee stock options and the effect of executive compensation plans on financial accounting and disclosure. Professor Kasznik has received several teaching awards, including the Sloan Teaching Excellence Award in 2001, 2003, and 2005, and a number of faculty awards, including, most recently, the MBA Class of 1969 Faculty Scholarship and the Robert and Marilyn Jaedicke Faculty Fellow for 2013-2014.
Doron Nissim
Professor Columbia University
Professor Nissim earned his PhD in Accounting at Berkeley Haas, and joined Columbia Business School in 1997. In 2014, he was reappointed as the Chair of the Accounting Division, after previously serving as the chair from 2006 to 2009. Professor Nissim’s research is primarily in the areas of equity valuation, fundamental analysis, and earnings quality. His studies investigate various issues related to fundamental and relative (price multiple) valuation, corporate and personal taxes, market efficiency, reliability and relevance of financial disclosures, corporate finance, and financial institutions. Professor Nissim’s research has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Accounting Research, the Accounting Review, the Review of Accounting Studies, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Journal of Banking and Finance, as well as in practitioner-oriented journals such as the Financial Analysts Journal and The Journal of Financial Perspectives. Professor Nissim’s research is frequently cited in the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, Time, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Chief Executive Magazine, The Economist, and the International Herald Tribune. Professor Nissim served as an editor of the Review of Accounting Studies from 2006 to 2013. Professor Nissim has received several honors and awards, including a prize from the Financial Executive Research Foundation, the Morgan Stanley Award for Contributions to the Development of ModelWare Core Strategies; two nominations for the Brattle Prize at the Journal of Finance; and two teaching awards.