Elizabeth Demers

Elizabeth has taught and/or presented her research at institutions and conferences in more than 30 countries around the world. Her recent research interests are related to the role of non-financial information (including linguistic measures derived from textual analysis of corporate communications, ESG summary scores, corporate climate risk disclosures, and firms' LGBTQ-inclusivity) in assessing and predicting firm performance, and the impact of disclosure and communications on the firm’s cost of capital and stock price crash risk. Her studies have been published in the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Financial Economics, Management Science, Review of Accounting Studies, the Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, the Harvard Business Review, and other top outlets, and they are widely cited in both the academic literature and in the financial press (The Economist, Fortune, Forbes, Financial Times, Globe & Mail Report on Business, etc.). Her consulting activities include financial statement analyses and “red flag reviews” for hedge funds and other institutional investors, research and teaching presentations to investment fund managers, and litigation support for the quantification of economic damages.

Teaching

Elizabeth Demers (BA and MAcc, UWaterloo; MSc. and PhD, Stanford University) has taught undergraduate, PhD, Masters of Accounting, Masters in Finance, MBAs and Executive MBAs while serving on the faculties of INSEAD (France), the Darden Graduate School of Business (University of Virginia), the University of Rochester, HEC-Lausanne (Switzerland), the Gdańsk University of Technology (Poland), and the University of Michigan.

Research

Peer-reviewed accounting and finance publications

• A Rude Awakening: Internet Shakeout in 2000 (with Baruch Lev), 2001, Review of Accounting Studies.
• The Marketing Role of IPOs: Evidence from Internet Stocks (with Katharina Lewellen), 2003, Journal of Financial Economics. Abbreviated version reproduced in Betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung und Praxis, Vol. 58, No. 5 (October 2006): 468-480.
• IPO Failure Risk (with Philip Joos), 2007, Journal of Accounting Research Conference Volume.
• The Juxtaposition of Social Surveillance Controls with Traditional Organizational Design Components (with Margaret Shackell and Sally Widener), 2008, Contemporary Accounting Research, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Summer): 605-638. Study funded by CIMA.
• The Role of Accounting Information in a Stock Market Bubble: Evidence from Internet IPOs (with Nilahbra Bhattacharya and Philip Joos), 2010, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting.
• Contemporaneous Verification of Language: Evidence from Management Earnings Forecasts (with S. Baginski, C. Wang, and J. Yu), 2016, Review of Accounting Studies.
• Oh What a Beautiful Morning! Diurnal Variations in Economic Agents’ Behavior: Evidence from Conference Calls (with B. Lev and J. Chen), 2018, Management Science.
• Linguistic Tone and the Small Trader (with S. Baginski, A. Kausar, and J. Yu), 2018, Accounting, Organizations and Society (Special Conference Edition on New Corporate Disclosures and New Methods).
• A Note on Career Concerns and Earnings Management (with C. Wang), 2020, Journal of Business Accounting and Finance Perspectives.
• ESG Didn’t Immunize Stocks During the COVID-19 Crisis, But Investments in Intangible Assets Did (with J. Hendrikse, P. Joos, and B. Lev), 2021, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting.

Working papers

• Corporate Communications Credibility and the Pricing of Textual Sentiment: Evidence from Quarterly Earnings Announcements (with A. Kausar, C. Vega, and R. Wang).
• LGBTQ-Inclusive Policies, Innovation, and Firm Value: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach (with G. Berberich and S. Oz)
• Aggregate Tone and Gross Domestic Product (with F. Gaertner, A. Kausar, L. Steele).
• TCFD Climate Risk Disclosures: Early Evidence on the "Gold Standard" (with M. Metzner).
• The Demerminants and Consequences of Voluntary Tax Disclosures in Sustainability Reporting (with J. Adams and K. Klassen).