Press Releases Chicago Booth's Christian Leuz Receives Accounting Research Prize

Christian Leuz, the Joseph Sondheimer Professor of International Economics, Finance and Accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business received the 2016 Distinguished Contribution to Accounting Literature Award from the American Accounting Association (AAA).

The prize recognizes accounting research of exceptional merit that has significantly impacted the discipline over a period of at least five years.

Leuz was honored for his 2008 paper, "Mandatory IFRS Reporting Around the World: Early Evidence on the Economic Consequences." The study examines the mandated adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for publicly traded companies around the world, which was arguably one of the biggest regulatory changes in accounting history.

The study documents significant capital-market effects in stock market liquidity and also firms’ cost of capital around IFRS adoption, but emphasizes that these effects occur primarily in countries where firms have incentives to be transparent and where legal enforcement is strong. The heterogeneity in the effects underscores the central importance of firms’ reporting incentives and countries’ enforcement regimes for the quality of financial reporting, and also questions the extent to which the documented market effects are solely attributable to IFRS adoption.

He shares this award with his co-authors, University of Mannheim’s Holger Daske and University of Pennsylvania Wharton School’s Luzi Hail.

It is the second time Leuz has received this prestigious prize. He first received the award in 2014 for his research into the role of investor protection and countries’ institutional features for accounting quality and earnings management around the world.

Leuz serves as co-director of the Initiative on Global Markets at Chicago Booth, is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a fellow at the European Corporate Governance Institute and the Center for Financial Studies at Goethe University, his alma mater. Leuz has done extensive research on the role of corporate disclosures, accounting transparency and disclosure regulation in capital markets and in corporate financing.

Among his other awards, Leuz has received the Humboldt Research Award for the significant impact of his body of work has had on the accounting field and the Wildman Medal Award for his research on international accounting.

The American Accounting Association, founded in 1916, is the largest community of accountants in academia.