Research

Specialist areas

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• Accounting specialist areas

  The Accounting, Advisory and Analytics Discipline has 4 signature research themes.

  1. Financial Reporting, Disclosure & Capital Markets
  Informing investment and supporting efficient capital markets

  Financial reports provide critical market information that shapes investor sentiment and market outcomes. Our researchers are at the forefront of knowledge on the contributors to, and consequences of, high-quality financial reporting, including international accounting standards, earnings quality, non-GAAP reporting, segment and cash-flow disclosures, the valuation of intangibles and innovation, and IPO pricing, including in the mining, oil and gas sector. Our research, published in top accounting journals including Contemporary Accounting Research and Review of Accounting Studies, demonstrates how financial reporting choices affect outcomes in the capital markets in Australia and internationally. This work has been recognised significant impact in the academic literature and accounting practice.

  2. Performance Measurement & Management Control
  Aligning organisational behaviour to strategic objectives 

  This discipline is home to internationally recognised thought leaders in management accounting and control systems research. Anchored by field-defining work on management control systems "as a package" and configurations of control that support different strategies and modes of innovation, this research has been published in leading journals including Accounting, Organizations and Society, Management Accounting Research, and Journal of Management Accounting Research. Our researchers explore how performance measurement, budgeting and control systems shape behaviour, motivation, flexibility and innovation within and between organisations. This research helps decision makers understand systems that balance accountability, viability, innovation, and empowerment in a changing world.

  3. Corporate Governance & Auditing    
  Promoting effective governance and confidence in financial reporting  

  Corporate governance and external auditing are essential in protecting shareholder interests by providing monitoring over management decision making and financial reporting. Our researchers are internationally recognised for their work on executive pay, board effectiveness, audit pricing, and the role of governance and auditing in ensuring high-quality financial reporting. This work has been published in leading journals including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Corporate Finance, and Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory. This research has contributed to understanding the ways policymakers, regulators and corporations can improve management accountability, build trust, and protect capital markets participants.

  4. Tax, Corporate Social Responsibility & The Care Economy  
  Accounting for a fairer, greener economy.

  Our researchers lead globally recognised research programs addressing broader challenges in taxation, corporate social responsibility, sustainability and the care economy. Pioneering research from academics in the discipline have contributed to understanding corporate tax aggressiveness, CSR, board composition and gender, reshaping how scholars and policymakers think about corporate behaviour and legitimacy. Complementing this, discipline researchers are advancing research in environmental sustainability and the care economy, including measurement systems, energy efficiency and the economics of aged care, positioning the Discipline at the forefront of how accounting can serve a fairer and more sustainable economy. This emerging area of research, in addition to being published in high-quality academic journals, has been recognised in practice and policy development.

• Finance specialist areas

  The Finance Discipline has 5 signature research themes.

  1. Market microstructure & digital finance
  Decoding how modern markets trade, price and stay honest.

  The Finance Discipline is internationally recognised for research on how modern markets work. Published in the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics, our work includes some of the world's most-cited studies on illicit cryptocurrency activity, crypto insider trading, and the effects of high-frequency and algorithmic trading. Anchored by the annual Sydney Market Microstructure and Digital Finance Conference, the group sits at the frontier of crypto-assets, FinTech, market design and market surveillance.

  2. Sustainable finance, climate risk & energy markets
  Financing the net-zero transition.

  As climate change reshapes the economy, our researchers study how financial markets price, fund and respond to environmental risk. The work spans climate transition risk in bond markets, renewable energy and electricity pricing, corporate sustainability and resilience, and socially responsible investing. By linking energy markets, commodities, corporate behaviour and ESG investing, the group provides the evidence investors, companies and policymakers need to navigate the net-zero transition.

  3. Asset management & investment strategies
  The science of building better portfolios.

  The Finance Discipline has deep expertise in how money is managed and how investors build better portfolios. Our researchers study mutual fund performance, fees and governance, the behaviour of fund managers and the design of momentum, value and diversification strategies that work in real markets. Combining rigorous empirical analysis with advanced portfolio-optimisation and econometric techniques, this research informs both the funds-management industry and everyday investors about what truly drives returns.

  4. Corporate finance, banking & behavioural finance
  Why firms, banks and people really make the financial choices they do.

  This theme examines the decisions firms, banks and their leaders make, and why they often depart from textbook rationality. Our researchers investigate executive overconfidence and incentives, corporate investment and financial analysts, bank lending and credit spreads, corporate philanthropy, and innovation and entrepreneurship, with work in the Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies. A distinctive strength is behavioural and cultural finance, including pioneering studies on gender and discrimination in markets, revealing how psychology and social forces shape corporate outcomes and asset prices.

  5. Quantitative & computational finance
  The mathematical engine behind pricing and risk.

  At the mathematical core of the Finance Discipline is a group advancing the models that underpin modern finance. Their research develops techniques for pricing derivatives and managing risk, modelling interest rates and commodity markets, solving optimal-stopping and stochastic-control problems, and applying high-frequency econometrics and machine learning to financial data. This work supplies the rigorous analytical foundations connect the Discipline's strengths in trading, energy and asset management to real-world valuation and risk management.