This course surveys leading academic research on regulation, accounting fraud and other emerging topics. I intend to cover topics that are central to academic life but are often learned on the job (what does it mean to be an accounting researcher? what is good research? how to come up with marketable research ideas? how should we think about scientific method in positive accounting or economics). In addition, I cover (i) accounting regulation and its aftermath; (ii) other ways of conducting research (or “skinning the cat,” if you will) such as the use of field studies, surveys, or using data from less regulated regimes in the past (e.g., R&D accounting before the SEC) to complement the workhorse pooled cross-sectional approach using the latest data; (iii) emerging topics that I am interested in (corporate culture, forensic accounting, financial misreporting).

Shivaram Rajgopal

Roy Bernard Kester and T.W. Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing

Shiva Rajgopal is the Kester and Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing at Columbia Business School. He has also been a faculty member at the Duke University, Emory University and the University of Washington. Professor Rajgopal’s research interests span financial reporting, earnings quality, fraud, executive compensation and corporate culture.  His research is frequently cited in the popular press, including...

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