Bridging Theory and Empirical Research in Accounting

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Breuer, Matthias; Labro, Eva; Sapra, Haresh; Zakolyukina, Anastasia A.
• 署名单位: Columbia University; University of North Carolina; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-8456
• DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.12545
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 1121-1139
• 关键词: earnings management; audit market; INFORMATION; disclosure; ORGANIZATION; frequency; DYNAMICS; QUALITY; science

摘要

Formal theory and empirical research are complementary in building and advancing the body of knowledge in accounting in order to understand real-world phenomena. We offer thoughts on opportunities for empiricists and theorists to collaborate, build on each other's work, and iterate over models and data to make progress. For empiricists, we see room for more descriptive work, more experimental work on testing formal theories, and more work on quantifying theoretical parameters. For theorists, we see room for theories explicitly tied to descriptive evidence, new theories on individuals' decision making in a data-rich world, theories focused on accounting institutions and measurement issues, and richer theories for guiding empirical work and providing practical insights. We also encourage explicitly combining formal theory and empirical models by having both in one paper and by structural estimation.