Research Agenda. A recurring theme in Özel's research is that firms and managers actively adapt to the legal, regulatory, and economic environments they face. These responses can take many forms (including compliance, disclosure, financing decisions, and regulatory arbitrage) and can create consequences that extend well beyond the regulated firm.
His work has examined, among other questions, how firms use managerial job titles in response to overtime regulation, how financial incentives affect workplace safety, how individual tax rates influence executive behavior, how disclosure requirements alter litigation exposure, and how legal institutions and information intermediaries shape credit markets.
More broadly, his research seeks to understand how regulation and institutional constraints alter incentives, how firms respond to those incentives, and what those responses imply for the effectiveness and broader consequences of regulation.
Academic Service and Leadership. Özel contributes to the academic profession through editorial roles and doctoral program leadership. He serves on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review and Contemporary Accounting Research and regularly reviews research for leading journals in accounting and finance. He is also the founding Academic Director of the Center for Corporate Compliance at UT Dallas, which promotes research and dialogue on corporate regulation, compliance, enforcement, and their economic consequences. He is also actively involved with Girls Who Invest, a non-profit dedicated to increasing gender diversity in investment management.
Policy, Practice & Public Engagement. Özel's research informs conversations beyond academia. He has engaged with regulatory organizations, including the U.S. Department of Labor and the European Securities and Markets Authority, as well as credit-rating agencies, law firms, and other organizations on issues related to regulation, disclosure, enforcement, and financial markets.
These interactions also help shape his research agenda by bringing attention to economically important questions that are not always visible in traditional academic settings. More broadly, his work seeks to use rigorous empirical evidence to understand how regulation operates in practice and how firms adapt to the rules and institutions they face.
His research has also reached broader public audiences and has been featured or discussed in outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Time, and Harvard Business Review.
Teaching. Özel teaches accounting and finance across undergraduate, graduate, executive, and doctoral programs. He has taught at UT Dallas, The Wharton School, and UCLA Anderson and has received multiple awards for teaching excellence.He was also named one of Poets&Quants’ Best 40-Under-40 Business School Professors.
Background. Özel earned his Ph.D. in Accounting from Columbia Business School. Before joining UT Dallas, he served on the faculty of UCLA Anderson School of Management and later held a visiting faculty appointment (the Harry W. Reynolds and Judith and William Bollinger Visiting Associate Professor) at The Wharton School.