SEC Division Research organizes experimental financial accounting research published since 1990 that addresses issues relevant to SEC divisions. This includes studies related to the Division of Corporation Finance, grouping them into three main categories: mandatory disclosures and proposed rules, voluntary disclosures, and broader disclosure-related topics. It also includes studies pertaining to the Division of Enforcement and studies relevant to other SEC divisions.
SEC Offices Research organizes experimental financial accounting research published since 1990 that addresses issues relevant to SEC offices. Studies related to the Office of the Chief Accountant (OCA) are grouped into the Professional Practice Group (including Independence, Controls, Expanded Audit Reporting, and General Auditing) and the International Group. This research summary also includes studies pertaining to the Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA) and studies relevant to other SEC offices.
FINRA Research organizes experimental financial accounting research published since 1990 that addresses issues relevant to FINRA. The studies are grouped into two primary topic areas: analysts and investor education.
To identify the papers categorized in the original Accounting Horizons article, we conducted a three-step process. First, we obtained a listing of accounting publications classified as financial experimental (from twelve journals) in the byuaccounting.net database beginning in 1990 and ending in December 2024 (Coyne, Summers, Williams and Wood 2010). Second, two authors independently evaluated each paper for relevance to SEC or FINRA rules or oversight, excluding those lacking clear connections to these regulators. We also excluded studies primarily related to FASB or IASB standard-setting as these studies are thoroughly discussed in Koonce et al. (2024), though we retained studies with applicability to both standard-setting and regulatory initiatives. Third, we categorized each paper in our final sample across the three tables. Categorization was based on each study’s title, abstract, introduction, as well as a review of its method and experimental design. Two authors independently evaluated each paper for the appropriate categorization. Our approach links studies to the regulatory group at the SEC and/or FINRA most connected to the investigated topic. Studies with relevance to multiple groups are denoted with an asterisk and cited within each applicable section, resulting in some repetition, but ensuring relevant studies are not overlooked.
We update the tables annually (typically in January) by reviewing all papers published and online early in the previous calendar year and classifying identified papers using the process described above.
Notes and references
We are grateful to David Wood for providing us with a listing of all papers classified as experimental financial from a list of twelve journals for the years 1990 to 2024 from the byuaccounting.net database (see http://www.byuaccounting.net/rankings/univrank/rankings.php).
Coyne, J. G., S. L. Summers, B. Williams, & D. A. Wood. (2010). Accounting program research rankings by topical area and methodology. Issues in Accounting Education, 25, 631–645.