Ulrich Schäfer

Research statement

I joined the University of Vienna as assistant professor in 2023 following positions at University of Zurich, Georg August University Göttingen and Philipps University Marburg.

My research addresses the intersection of managerial and financial accounting. Using theoretical economic modeling, I study how managers’ explicit and implicit incentives affect their discretionary disclosure choices. Empirical work documents that compensation system design and managers’ reputational concerns affect the quality of mandatory and voluntary disclosures. These findings suggest that managers’ multilayered reporting objectives have important implications for measures of capital market efficiency, such as allocational efficiency, price informativeness, and the cost of capital. Accounting theory should provide a coherent basis to understand and relate existing results. It should complement empirical research and help to identify guidelines for firms as well as accounting regulators to create a transparent and efficient disclosure environment. Ongoing developments towards stakeholder reporting and disclosure digitalization challenge our understanding and call for rigorous and innovative theoretical studies to discover the economic forces at work.

My publications address questions such as: How do managers’ financial incentives and reputational concerns jointly affect price informativeness? Does investor sophistication reduce earnings management incentives? How do information leaks affect firms’ voluntary disclosure decisions? Does CEOs’ and CFOs’ joint responsibility for financial misreporting affect price efficiency? What are the real effects of measuring and reporting unrealized fair value gains? How can deferred compensation balance managers’ productive decision and discretionary reporting choices? What are the effects of flexible financing policies on firms’ cost of capital?

My teaching at an undergraduate and graduate level is closely related to my research interests focusing on management accounting and control, optimal executive incentives, fundamental analysis, and corporate valuation.

Professional experience

Aug. 2023 –                               Assistant Professor of Managerial Accounting, University of Vienna

Feb. 2016 – Jul. 2023          Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Zurich

Feb. 2016 – Jul. 2023          Teaching fellow, Distance University Switzerland

Nov. 2012 – Jan. 2016        Postdoctoral research fellow, Georg August University Göttingen

Nov. 2010 – Aug. 2012       Research assistant, Georg August University Göttingen

Aug. 2006 – Sep. 2010        Research assistant, Philipps University Marburg

Academic qualifications 

Feb. 2013 – 0  2/2013          Doctorate in Business Administration, Philipps University Marburg

Jul. 2006 – 07/200    6          Diploma in Business Mathematics, Philipps University Marburg