IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/aelcon/v15y2025i1p123-139n1005.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Breuer Matthias

    (Columbia University, 665 W 130th St, New York, NY 10027, USA)

Abstract

Ohlson (2025. Empirical accounting seminars: Elephants in the room. Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium 15, 1–8) laments that the evidentiary quality of empirical accounting research is low due to inappropriate methods and practices, leaving seminar attendees and readers unpersuaded by presented or published articles. He suggests that the norms of the profession prevent a public recognition and discussion of those issues, thereby sustaining the poor state of empirical accounting research. I agree that some current empirical approaches and norms seem to hamper progress toward more convincing research. I provide a practical suggestion to possibly improve the state of empirical accounting research. I caution though that even with better methods and more honest research practices, we should not expect that any individual research article can provide conclusive answers to important accounting questions. Such progress in knowledge requires a body of high-quality and independent research.

Suggested Citation

  • Breuer Matthias, 2025. "Another Way Forward: Comments on Ohlson’s Critique of Empirical Accounting Research," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 123-139.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:15:y:2025:i:1:p:123-139:n:1005
    DOI: 10.1515/ael-2022-0093
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/ael-2022-0093
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/ael-2022-0093?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Abadie, 2020. "Statistical Nonsignificance in Empirical Economics," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 193-208, June.
    2. Timothy Conley & Silvia Gonçalves & Christian Hansen, 2018. "Inference with Dependent Data in Accounting and Finance Applications," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 1139-1203, September.
    3. James A. Ohlson, 2022. "Researchers’ data analysis choices: an excess of false positives?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 649-667, June.
    4. Brian C. Martinson & Melissa S. Anderson & Raymond de Vries, 2005. "Scientists behaving badly," Nature, Nature, vol. 435(7043), pages 737-738, June.
    5. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    6. Bernard, Vl & Thomas, Jk, 1989. "Post-Earnings-Announcement Drift - Delayed Price Response Or Risk Premium," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27, pages 1-36.
    7. Matthias Breuer & Harm H. Schütt, 2023. "Accounting for uncertainty: an application of Bayesian methods to accruals models," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 726-768, June.
    8. Jeremy Bertomeu & Ying Liang & Iván Marinovic, 2023. "A Primer on Structural Estimation in Accounting Research," Foundations and Trends(R) in Accounting, now publishers, vol. 18(1-2), pages 1-137, June.
    9. Armstrong, Christopher & Kepler, John D. & Samuels, Delphine & Taylor, Daniel, 2022. "Causality redux: The evolution of empirical methods in accounting research and the growth of quasi-experiments," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2).
    10. Johnstone, David, 2018. "Accounting Theory as a Bayesian Discipline," Foundations and Trends(R) in Accounting, now publishers, vol. 13(1-2), pages 1-266, December.
    11. Baker, Andrew C. & Larcker, David F. & Wang, Charles C.Y., 2022. "How much should we trust staggered difference-in-differences estimates?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 370-395.
    12. Ronald L. Wasserstein & Nicole A. Lazar, 2016. "The ASA's Statement on p -Values: Context, Process, and Purpose," The American Statistician, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(2), pages 129-133, May.
    13. Campbell R. Harvey, 2017. "Presidential Address: The Scientific Outlook in Financial Economics," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(4), pages 1399-1440, August.
    14. Glaeser, Stephen & Guay, Wayne R., 2017. "Identification and generalizability in accounting research: A discussion of Christensen, Floyd, Liu, and Maffett (2017)," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 305-312.
    15. Neale Mahoney, 2022. "Principles for Combining Descriptive and Model-Based Analysis in Applied Microeconomics Research," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 211-222, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Erik Johannesson & James A. Ohlson & Sophia Weihuan Zhai, 2024. "The explanatory power of explanatory variables," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 3053-3083, December.
    2. Matthias Breuer & Ed Dehaan, 2024. "Using and Interpreting Fixed Effects Models," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 1183-1226, September.
    3. Fiechter, Peter & Landsman, Wayne R. & Peasnell, Kenneth & Renders, Annelies, 2024. "Do industry-specific accounting standards matter for capital allocation decisions?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2).
    4. Johnstone, David, 2022. "Accounting research and the significance test crisis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Paul Calluzzo & Fabio Moneta & Selim Topaloglu, 2019. "When Anomalies Are Publicized Broadly, Do Institutions Trade Accordingly?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4555-4574, October.
    6. Shi, Huai-Long & Zhou, Wei-Xing, 2022. "Factor volatility spillover and its implications on factor premia," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Jungbae Kim, 2024. "The effect of PCAOB inspections on corporate innovation: evidence from deficiencies about the valuation of intangibles," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 1491-1523, June.
    8. Christian Fieberg & Daniel Metko & Thorsten Poddig & Thomas Loy, 2023. "Machine learning techniques for cross-sectional equity returns’ prediction," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 45(1), pages 289-323, March.
    9. Ming-Che Hu & Alex YiHou Huang & Yanzhi Wang & Dan-Liou Yu, 2024. "Book-to-market effect and product life cycle," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 551-577, August.
    10. Vitor Azevedo & Christopher Hoegner, 2023. "Enhancing stock market anomalies with machine learning," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 195-230, January.
    11. Dak-Adzaklo, Cephas Simon Peter & Wong, Raymond M.K., 2024. "Corporate governance reforms, societal trust, and corporate financial policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Lu Zhang, 2017. "The Investment CAPM," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 545-603, September.
    13. Lu Zhang, 2019. "Q-factors and Investment CAPM," NBER Working Papers 26538, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kim, Jinhwan & Valentine, Kristen, 2023. "Public firm disclosures and the market for innovation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1).
    15. Michaelides, Michael, 2021. "Large sample size bias in empirical finance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    16. Ray Ball & Gil Sadka & Ayung Tseng, 2022. "Using accounting earnings and aggregate economic indicators to estimate firm-level systematic risk," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 607-646, June.
    17. Ramiah, Vikash & Xu, Xiaoming & Moosa, Imad A., 2015. "Neoclassical finance, behavioral finance and noise traders: A review and assessment of the literature," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 89-100.
    18. Ho, Hwai-Chung & Tsai, Wei-Che, 2020. "Price delay and post-earnings announcement drift anomalies: The role of option-implied betas," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    19. Berkman, Henk & Dimitrov, Valentin & Jain, Prem C. & Koch, Paul D. & Tice, Sheri, 2009. "Sell on the news: Differences of opinion, short-sales constraints, and returns around earnings announcements," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 376-399, June.
    20. Eszter Czibor & David Jimenez‐Gomez & John A. List, 2019. "The Dozen Things Experimental Economists Should Do (More of)," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 371-432, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    accounting research; Bayesian inference; hypothesis development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M4 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:15:y:2025:i:1:p:123-139:n:1005. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.