PhD in Accounting
As a PhD student in accounting at Booth, you’ll have the freedom to explore and cultivate your research interests from day one—wherever they lead.
You’ll join a collaborative research community and work with prominent scholars whose groundbreaking research is recognized for its impact on the academic literature, accounting practice and policymaking, securities regulation, and elsewhere. In addition to your stipend, you may apply for research and conference travel funding from our research centers and the Stevens Doctoral Program. In research workshops and conferences, you’ll present your work and hear about the work of fellow researchers.
Our Distinguished Accounting Faculty
As measured by research productivity and impact, Chicago Booth has one of the best accounting faculty groups in the world. The group includes Philip G. Berger, Hans B. Christensen, Merle Erickson, Christian Leuz, Michael Minnis, Valeri Nikolaev, Haresh Sapra, Douglas J. Skinner, and Abbie J. Smith, as well as an outstanding group of research-active junior faculty. The school is committed to maintaining the quality of this group.
These distinguished scholars are also teachers and mentors who will advise you, coauthor papers with you, supervise your thesis, help you find an outstanding job, and serve as colleagues throughout your career.
Alumni Success
The American Accounting Association periodically awards a prize for seminal contributions to the accounting literature. Graduates of the PhD Accounting Program are regular winners of this prestigious prize.
Our PhD graduates in accounting go on to faculty positions at some of the world's most prestigious institutions.
Fabien Nagel, MBA '24, PhD '24
Donald P. Jacobs Scholar and Assistant Professor of Accounting Information and Management
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Fabian's research combines theory and data to examine how accounting and information issues affect consumer credit markets. His dissertation area is in accounting.
Sinja Leonelli, MBA '23, PhD '23
Assistant Professor of Accounting
Stern School of Business, New York University
Sinja's research primarily examines misconduct reporting, regulation and enforcement, and the use of ESG information by stakeholders such as regulators, employees, and consumers. Her dissertation area is in accounting.
Kalash Jain, MBA '23, PhD '23
Assistant Professor of Business, Accounting Division
Columbia Business School, Columbia University
His research examines the impact of information processing frictions and investor decision making on asset prices and firm investment. His dissertation area is in accounting.
Shirley Lu, MBA ’21, PhD ’21
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School, Harvard University
Shirley Lu studies Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure, with a focus on climate change and gender diversity. Her dissertation area is in accounting.
Spotlight on Research
Chicago Booth Review frequently highlights the work of accounting PhD students, faculty, and alumni.
One Way Discrimination Creeps into the Supply Chain
A Q&A with Chicago Booth’s Anna Costello about how the pandemic affected which suppliers got paid on time.
One Way Discrimination Creeps into the Supply Chain
AI Reads between the Lines to Discover Corporate Risk
“Corporate risk exposures are often subtly implied in conference call discussions rather than explicitly stated,” write Chicago Booth PhD student Alex G. Kim and Booth’s Maximilian Muhn and Valeri Nikolaev.
AI Reads between the Lines to Discover Corporate Risk
Civilization is Based on Accounting
A Q&A with Chicago Booth’s Ray Ball on accounting’s past and future.
Civilization is Based on Accounting
Financial Data Privacy Could Help Fight Poverty
Historical data can shape future outcomes, helping to determine whether a prospective borrower has access to a home, car, or other opportunities, write University of Utah’s Mark Jansen, Chicago Booth PhD student Fabian Nagel, and Booth’s Constantine Yannelis and Anthony Lee Zhang.
Financial Data Privacy Could Help Fight PovertyA Network of Support
Doctoral students at Booth have access to the resources of several research centers that offer funding for student work, host workshops and conferences, and foster a strong research community.
The Chookaszian Accounting Research Center
The Chookaszian Accounting Research Center coordinates accounting research at Chicago Booth and hosts research brown bags and workshops. It also publishes the Journal of Accounting Research, one of the top accounting research journals in the world.
George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State
Dedicated to examining issues at the intersection of politics and the economy, the Stigler Center supports research in the political, economic, and cultural obstacles to better working markets.
Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation
Chicago Booth’s destination for people committed to tackling social and environmental problems, the Rustandy Center supports the work of PhD students and others who are focused on transforming the social sector.
Inside the Student Experience
For Andrew Sutherland, PhD ’13, coauthoring research with Booth faculty was a highlight of the Stevens Program.
Andrew Sutherland, ’13: 00:09
In accounting, there's tons and tons of research on these big public firms that have an army of investor relations people and they constant disclosing things. That's where most of the research was happening, but there's this whole other half of the economy, these private firms, that we didn't really know a lot about. We didn't know a lot about how they got credit. What was interesting to me is that a lot of time, firms are able to get credit without even providing any financial statements or any information whatsoever to the bank. The reason they're able to get credit is that they have a credit score. So in other words, the information is coming, not from the form itself, but from another bank who had dealt with them in the past. What really struck me was there wasn't really a lot of research out there on this information channel. That's when I decided I wanted to learn a little bit more about what this reporting channel does to contract and help firms get credit and how it changes banks' incentives to lend.
Andrew Sutherland, ’13: 01:01
Basically, the firms that have a good credit record or a long track record of borrowing successfully were the ones that were able to shop around. We would think that's a good thing, that giving firms more choice about who to borrow from kind of increases social welfare, you get better matching between lenders and firms. Kind of the dark side is that the firms that have had payment trouble that have defaulted or missed some payments on loans sort of get shut out of the credit part. You have a harder time starting any new relationships with outside lenders. That's kind of a cost.
Andrew Sutherland, ’13: 01:34
The second cost is that information sharing changes the game for lenders. So, if participating in this credit bureau basically allows outside lenders to pick off the firms that are doing better, then that destroys the incentive for lenders to kind of invest in relationships to begin with. That's sort of the second dark side of information sharing, if you will.
Andrew Sutherland, ’13: 01:54
So, I coauthor on a number of projects with the junior faculty member here named Mike Minnis. I probably talked to Mike more than I talk to my wife. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But, I mean, as a PhD student, there's only so much you can learn in class, and having a faculty member to work with that's kind of gone through the ropes and understands the review process, that's done something on their own, it gives you a really good opportunity to learn. That's something, I think that was absolutely instrumental in my success
Current Accounting Students
PhD students in accounting come to Chicago Booth with a wide range of interests and goals. Recent dissertations have focused on everything from machine learning to the impact of fiscal monitoring, and graduates have gone on to positions at some of the world’s preeminent institutions, including Columbia Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Esteban Espinoza Aburto
Carolina Maia Silva Araujo
Samuel Chang
Jonas Dalmazzo
Jewel Evans
Lingyu (Laura) Gu
Yanzi (Yvonne) Han
Grant Hayes
Maria Khrakovsky
Alex Kim
Ginha Kim
Andrew McKinley
Pietro Ramella
Subhradip Sarker
Jizhou Wang
Hanbyul Yoon
Program Expectations and Requirements
The Stevens Doctoral Program at Chicago Booth is a full-time program. Students generally complete the majority of coursework and examination requirements within the first two years of studies and begin work on their dissertation during the third year.
For details, see General Examination Requirements by Area in the Stevens Program Guidebook below.