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Jeffrey Hales

Professor

Department:     Accounting

Research Areas:     Accounting - Financial, Accounting - Managerial

Jeff Hales

Jeffrey Hales teaches at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Bake Chair in Global Sustainability Leadership, is the Charles T. Zlatkovich Centennial Professor of Accounting, and serves as the Executive Director of the Global Sustainability Leadership Institute.

He is a graduate of the accounting program at Brigham Young University and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University. His research interests center on accounting standard setting and regulation, individual decision making, and behavioral finance, using techniques from applied game theory, experimental economics, and psychology. His research has appeared in The Accounting ReviewJournal of Accounting ResearchJournal of Accounting and Economics, and the Journal of Financial Economics, among other journals. He has served in editorial capacities at several journals, including editorial terms at Contemporary Accounting Research and Accounting Horizons.

Since July 2022, he has served on the International Sustainability Standards Board. From 2012 to 2022, he served in various leadership capacities at the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), including as Chair of the SASB Standards Board. During 2009-10, he was a Research Fellow at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in Norwalk, CT, and served as a member of the FASB’s Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council from 2016-2019.

ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP & AWARDS

2016

Georgia Power Professor of Excellence, Georgia Institute of Technology

 

2012

Linda and Lloyd L. Byars Award for Faculty Excellence, Georgia Institute of Technology

 

2012

Outstanding Reviewer Award, Contemporary Accounting Research

 

2017

Scheller Undergraduate Electives Professor of the Year, Georgia Institute of Technology

 

H. Scott Asay, Jeffrey Hales, Cory Hinds, and Kathy Rupar.  Nov 2023.
Nonprofessional Investor Judgments: Linking Dependent Measures to Constructs. 
The Accounting Review 98(7): 1-32.

Jeffrey Hales.  March 2023. What is the State of Accountancy Education? Accountability in a Sustainable World Quarterly, Issue 2: 97-100.

Heba Y. Abdel-Rahim, Jeffrey W. Hales, and Douglas E. Stevens. 2022. How Far Will Managers Go to Look Like a Good Steward? An Examination of Preferences for Trustworthiness and Honesty in Managerial Reporting. Contemporary Accounting Research, 39(2): 1023-1053

 

Khrystyna Bochkay, Jeffrey W. Hales, and Sudheer Chava. 2020. Hyperbole or Reality? Investor Response to Extreme Tone in Earnings Conference Calls. The Accounting Review 95(2), 31-60.

 

Michael S. Drake, Jeffrey W. Hales, and Lynn Rees. 2019. Disclosure Overload? A Professional-user Perspective on the Usefulness of General Purpose Financial Statements. Contemporary Accounting Research 36(4), 1935-1965.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales, J. R. Moon, and L. Swenson. 2018. A New Era of Voluntary Disclosure? Empirical Evidence on How Employee Postings on Social Media Relate to Future Corporate Disclosures. Accounting, Organizations and Society 68-69, 88-108.

 

H. S. Asay and Jeffrey W. Hales. 2018. Disclaiming the Future: Investigating the Impact of Cautionary Disclaimers on Investors Before and After Experiencing Economic Loss. The Accounting Review 93(4), 81-99.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales. 2018. Discussion of “Flight to Quality in International Markets: Political Uncertainty and Investors’ Demand for Financial Reporting Quality". Contemporary Accounting Research 35(1), 156-163.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales, L. Rees, and T. J. Wilks. 2016. A Synthesis of Three Commentaries on Measurement and Performance Reporting. Accounting Horizons 30(4), 473-483.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales, E. M. Matsumura, D. V. Moser, and R. Payne. 2016. Becoming Sustainable: A Rational Decision Based on Sound Information and Effective Processes? Journal of Management Accounting Research 28(2), 13-28.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales, L. Wang, and M. W. Williamson. 2015. Optimism and Contract Selection: Implications for Broad-based Stock Option Grants. The Accounting Review 90(4), 1497-1516.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales. 2015. Discussion of “The Effects of Forecast Type and Performance-based Incentives on the Quality of Management Forecasts”. Accounting, Organizations and Society 46, 19-22.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales and S. Orpurt. 2013. A Review of Academic Research on the Reporting of Cash Flows from Operations. Accounting Horizons27(3), 539-578.

 

S. Dikolli, J. H. Evans, Jeffrey W. Hales, M. Matejka, D. V. Moser, and M. G. Williamson. 2013. Testing Analytical Models Using Archival or Experimental Methods. Accounting Horizons 27(1), 129-139.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales, S. Venkataraman, and T. J. Wilks. 2012. Accounting for Lease Renewal Options: The Informational Effects of Unit of Account Choices. The Accounting Review 87(1), 173-197.

 

Michael B. Clement, Jeffrey W. Hales, and Yanfeng Xue. 2011. Understanding Analysts' Use of Stock Returns and Other Analysts' Revisions When Forecasting Earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics 51(3), 279-299.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales, X. Kuang, and S. Venkataraman. 2011. Who Believes the Hype? An Experimental Investigation of How Language Affects Investor Judgments. Journal of Accounting Research 49(1), 223-255.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales and M. Williamson. 2010. Implicit Employment Contracts: The Limits of Management Reputation for Promoting Firm Productivity. Journal of Accounting Research 48(!), 147-176.

 

R. Bloomfield and Jeffrey W. Hales. 2009. An Experimental Investigation of the Positive and Negative Effects of Mutual Observation. The Accounting Review 84(2), 331-354.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales. 2009. Are investors Really Willing to Agree to Disagree? An Experimental Investigation of How Disagreement and Attention to Disagreement Affect Trading Behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 108, 230-241.

 

Kendall O. Bowlin, Jeffrey W. Hales, and Steven J. Kachelmeier. 2009. Experimental Evidence of How Prior Experience as an Auditor Influences Managers’ Strategic Reporting Decisions. Review of Accounting Studies 14(1), 63-87.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales and Steven J. Kachelmeier. 2008. Predicting Relative Performance in Economic Competition. Journal of Behavioral Finance9(4), 187-192.

 

Jeffrey W. Hales. 2007. Directional Preferences, Information Processing, and Investors' Forecasts of Earnings. Journal of Accounting Research45 (3), 607-628.

 

Robert Bloomfield and Jeffrey W. Hales. 2002. Predicting the Next Step of a Random Walk: Experimental Evidence of Regime-Shifting Beliefs. Journal of Financial Economics 65, 397-414.

 

Mark W. Nelson, Robert J. Bloomfield, Jeffrey W. Hales, and Robert Libby. 2001. The Effect of Information Strength and Weight on Behavior in Financial Markets. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 86, 168-196.