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Financial accounting is the measurement of economic activity for decision-making. The objective of this course is not to train you to become an accountant but rather to help you develop into an informed user of financial statement information. Through cases, homework assignments, and classroom discussion, we will focus on understanding the mapping between underlying economic events and financial statements, and on understanding how this mapping affects inferences about future profitability and liquidity. The learning objectives are 1) Understanding accounting rules and terminology and how these are applied to construct financial statements, and 2) building an awareness of the judgment involved and the discretion allowed in choosing accounting methods, making estimates, and disclosing information in financial statements.

This course provides an introduction to the concepts and tools of managerial accounting. The first part of the course covers alternative costing methods and illustrates how the resulting cost information can be used to analyze the profitability of individual products and customers. The second part of the course will examine the role of internal accounting systems in evaluating the performance of individual business segments and divisions of the firm. Included in this part are topics related to the choice of internal pricing methods for transferring goods and services across divisions of the firm and the use of financial metrics for assessing the profitability of these divisions.

The course will examine the academic and professional controversies surrounding corporate governance and executive compensation. A basic framework will be developed to integrate the many important dimensions of corporate governance in the U.S. and international settings. The institutional features of corporate governance and executive compensation will be documented using the professional business and legal literatures. In addition, the scientific research in accounting, economics, finance, and organizational behavior will be used to provide insights into the measurement and consequences of observed corporate governance and executive compensation choices. After successfully finishing the course, a student should be able to (i) understand the debates about appropriate choices for corporate governance and executive compensation and (ii) critically evaluate the implications of academic and professional research studies on these controversial issues.

The goal of this course is to provide a fundamental understanding of the principles of taxation and tax planning as they relate to personal income taxes and considering an individuals financial position. Traditional business courses analyze an array of factors affecting business decisions but provide little systematic consideration of the role of taxes in individual financial planning decisions. By contrast, tax accounting courses traditionally concentrate on technical legal and administrative issues while ignoring the environment in which taxes enter an individual's decision-making. This case-based course intends to bridge this gap by discussing how taxes affect a variety of personal financial planning decisions.

Empirical Research on Financial Reporting: This doctoral-level course covers research on the role of accounting information in capital markets. The focus is on introducing students to key themes in empirical accounting and capital markets research, and to key research designs applied to examine information-related questions. Course topics include the informational role of financial reports, accounting measurement attributes, earnings management, earnings quality, and the role of key actors in the financial reporting environment, including management, investors, auditors, analysts and regulators. n nThe course is interdisciplinary in nature. The readings focus on research design, and key theories, themes and approaches from the accounting, finance, economics and psychology literature. Our overall goal is develop your understanding of existing research and its strengths and limitations, and to identify new research opportunities.

This course develops tools from information economics to study the strategic interactions between agents inside a firm and between firm insiders and market participants. Common to these studies is that agents acquire private information that is valuable to other parties. The range of applications includes: the structure of managerial performance measures, buyer-supplier contracting arrangements, earnings management, voluntary and mandatory disclosure and financial analysts.

This course examines selected topics in accounting research. The course features three faculty who will each give a focused look at a given area, introduce students to important questions in that area, key papers in the related literature, and critical aspects of the research designs applied in the area. The aim is to increase student's familiarity with empirical accounting research, their ability to critically evaluate research and research designs, and to prepare students to conduct independent research.

This course is offered for students requiring specialized training in an area not covered by existing courses. To register, a student must obtain permission from the faculty member who is willing to supervise the reading.