Matthias Breuer

Columbia Business School | Kravis Hall 1162 | 665 W 130th St |  New York, NY 10027

Vita

About me

I am an Associate Professor of Business in the Accounting Division of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and a Visiting Associate Professor of Accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (for the academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25).  In my research, I examine issues of corporate transparency and information verification, with a particular focus on the role of regulation in addressing corporate information issues.  I am fortunate that my research has been recognized with multiple awards (e.g., the 2023 Notable Contributions to the Accounting Literature Award of the American Accounting Association and the 2019 and 2021 Best Paper Awards of the American Accounting Association’s FARS Midyear Meetings), presented at leading universities and conferences, and published in reputable journals.

I am currently a Research Fellow at the TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency, an Affiliate Fellow of the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, was a Junior Fellow of the Stigler Center from 2018-2021, and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies on the Foundations of Law and Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2022.  I have been a member of the organizing committees of several conferences, including the Columbia Junior Accounting Faculty Conference (2019-2023), the Junior Accounting Theory Conference (2022), and the interdisciplinary Symposium on Private Firms:  Reporting, Financing, and the Aggregate Economy (2022).  My service as an ad-hoc reviewer and discussant for numerous top-tier journals and conferences has been recognized with a number of awards.

At CBS, I teach the Financial Accounting course in the core MBA program and a course on Empirical Methods in Accounting Research in the PhD program.  I serve as the Core Course Coordinator for Financial Accounting at CBS and received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in the Core in 2021.

Education

2018 - PhD Business (Accounting), University of Chicago Booth School of Business

2012 - MSc Accounting and Finance, London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom)

2011 - BSc Business Administration, WHU―Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany)

CV

Click here for a detailed PDF version

Contact

Email: mb4468@gsb.columbia.edu

SSRN website: www.ssrn.com/author_id=2424935 

Columbia website: www8.gsb.columbia.edu/cbs-directory/detail/mb4468

Research

Accepted and Published Papers

Using and Interpreting Fixed Effects Models

with Ed deHaan, Journal of Accounting Research (forthcoming)

Topics: Methods

Bridging Theory and Empirical Research in Accounting

with Eva Labro, Haresh Sapra, and Anastasia Zakolyukina, Journal of Accounting Research (forthcoming)

Invited comment based on panel discussion at JAR Conference (2023)

Topics: Methods

Another Way Forward: Comments on Ohlson's Critique of Empirical Accounting Research

Invited comment, Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium (forthcoming)

Topics: Methods

Accounting for Uncertainty: An Application of Bayesian Methods to Accruals Models

with Harm Schütt, Review of Accounting Studies (2023) [Data & Code]

Topics: Earnings, Methods

Bartik Instruments: An Applied Introduction

solo-authored, Journal of Financial Reporting (2022) [Slides] [Code]

Prepared for and presented at 2021 FARS/JFR Research Methods Virtual Mini-Conference

Topics: Methods

When You Talk, I Remain Silent: Spillover Effects of Peers' Mandatory Disclosures on Firms' Voluntary Disclosures

with Katharina Hombach and Maximilian Müller, The Accounting Review (2022)

Topics: Disclosure, Regulation

How Does Financial-Reporting Regulation Affect Industry-wide Resource Allocation?

solo-authored, Journal of Accounting Research (2021) [Data & Code] [Video]

Best Paper Award (FARS Midyear Meeting 2019 - presented in plenary session: Top Picks of the 19 FARS Editors)

Featured in the Chicago Booth Review (April 2018, February 2019, May 2023), on the Stigler Center's ProMarket Blog, and on the Oxford Business Law Blog

Topics: Disclosure, Auditing, Regulation

Investment Dynamics and Earnings-Return Properties: A Structural Approach

with David Windisch, Journal of Accounting Research (2019) [Data & Code]

Best Paper Award (Annual Accounting Conference 2018, Berlin)

MLP-Young Talent Award Nominee of the Accounting Section (VHB - German Academic Association for Business Research, 2020)

Topics: Earnings, Valuation, Methods

How Does Financial-Reporting Regulation Affect Firms' Banking? 

with Katharina Hombach and Maximilian Müller, Review of Financial Studies (2018)

MLP-Young Talent Award Nominee of the Accounting Section (VHB - German Academic Association for Business Research, 2019)

Topics: Disclosure, Auditing, Regulation

Working Papers

Learning to Disclose: Disclosure Dynamics in the 1890s Streetcar Industry

with Thomas Bourveau and Robert Stoumbos [Video]

Best Paper Award (FARS Midyear Meeting 2021)

Supported by research grant from Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy at Columbia University

Topics: Disclosure, Methods

Reporting Regulation and Corporate Innovation

with Christian Leuz and Steven Vanhaverbeke [Video]

NBER Working Paper No. 26291 and DFG Center for Advanced Studies - Foundations of Law & Finance (LawFin) Working Paper No. 8

Featured in the NBER Conference on Economic Analysis of Regulation (Spring 2022), the Symposium on Private Firms: Reporting, Financing, and the Aggregate Economy, the Chicago Booth Review, and on the VoxEU blog

Topics: Disclosure, Regulation

The Economics of Firms' Public Disclosure: Theory and Evidence

with Katharina Hombach and Maximilian Müller

Best Theory Paper Award (6th International Research Forum on Mittelstand at University of Mannheim)

Topics: Disclosure, Methods

Uneven Regulation and Economic Reallocation: Evidence from Transparency Regulation 

with Patricia Breuer

Best Conference Paper Award (VHB - German Academic Association for Business Research, Centenary and Annual Meeting,  2022)

Topics: Disclosure, Regulation

Corporate Websites: A New Measure of Voluntary Disclosure

with Romain Boulland and Thomas Bourveau [Data & Code]

Topics: Disclosure, Methods

Public Company Auditing Around the Securities Exchange Act

with Thomas Bourveau, Jeroen Koenraadt, and Robert Stoumbos

Topics: Auditing, Regulation

How Private Companies Attract the Market's Attention

with Thomas Bourveau and Maximilian Muhn

Topics: Disclosure

Audit Mandates, Audit Firms, and Auditors

with Anthony Le and Felix Vetter

Stigler Center Working Paper

Featured on the Stigler Center's ProMarket Blog

Topics: Auditing, Regulation

Minority Representation at Work

with Wei Cai, Anthony Le, and Felix Vetter

Topics: Governance, Regulation

Work in Progress

Cash vs. Accrual Accounting: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

with Pietro Bonetti and Maximilian Muhn

Topics: Earnings

Dynamic Investment and Accounting Conservatism

with David Windisch

Topics: Earnings, Valuation

Uncertain Earnings Betas

with Atif Ellahie and Harm Schütt

Topics: Earnings, Valuation

Other Materials

Presentations & Discussions

Code & Data

Note: Code & data are shared to facilitate academic research. No guarantee for correctness. Please acknowledge use and use at your own risk.