The research programme Finance and Accounting aims for the development and stewardship of high-quality knowledge in the domains of accounting and finance.
The research programme wants to belong to the leading finance and accounting programmes in Europe in terms of quantitative research that fits in high-quality academic journals and has high relevance for the finance and accounting profession. The research field of accounting and the research field of finance have a large overlap and our programme is active in this overlap.
On a high level, the programme wants to enhance our understanding of the functioning of financial markets, financial institutions and intermediaries, as well as the decision making and information provision of firms and their stakeholders.
Programme leaders
Research quality
As one element of the programme’s overall aim, the target is to be consistently ranked among the top European finance and accounting programmes in terms of the number of high-quality publications. The scientific impact of the research programme is evidenced by the substantial number of publications in reputable scientific journals. As we promote open science, many of the published articles are published open access, and often the data and codes are available to anybody interested through the journals and researchers’ individual websites. Recognition of research quality further originates from grants obtained by researchers of our programme, such as NWO Veni, Vidi and Vici grants and an ERC Consolidator grant.
Societal Relevance
Our research links to the U.N. sustainable development goals. For instance:
- Research of Daniel Urban and Patrick Verwijmeren maps into SDG goal 5 (gender equality)
- Ronald Huisman specialises on SDG goal 7 (affordable and clean energy)
- Stefan Obernberger works on SDG goal 8 (decent work/employee health)
- Sebastian Gryglewicz and Haikun Zhu on SDG goal 9 (financing innovation)
- Mintra Dwarkasing on SDG goal 10 (reduced inequality)
- Michael Erkens, Ying Gan, Ferdinand Elfers and Jochen Pierk on SDG goal 16 (strong institutions)
Following an Erasmus School of Economics initiative, the programme invested additional funds in projects that target SDG goals. For example:
- Accounting research by Jilde Garst, Karen Maas and Jeroen Suijs focuses on sustainability reporting by corporations
- Jeroen Suijs also participates in a research project for the Foundation for Auditing Research, a research foundation cofounded by the major auditing firms in the Netherlands.
Events
The Finance and Accounting programme organises highly focused conferences, also to participate in public debates. As an example, Onno Steenbeek organises the ‘Pension Days’ to build a bridge between theory and practice in an area highly relevant to society. Another example concerns specialized roundtables and conferences about reporting standards, and executive remuneration and financial performance in the health sector.
We actively communicate about the knowledge we develop with faculty peers worldwide, our students, the media, firms, and governments. For example, our research has appeared in The Economist, Nature, on BBC radio, in MOOCs, in Ted talks, and in (financial) newspapers such as the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Times.