Matthew Cedergren

Professor Cedergren's research focuses on disclosure activity and its relationship with securities litigation and regulations. In a recent paper in the Journal of Accounting and Economics, he investigates how managers' trading activity affects their likelihood to warn of impending negative earnings surprises, and how potential class action plaintiffs use observed trading in deciding whether to initiate litigation when such negative surprises manifest. Professor Cedergren’s research interests also include initial public offerings, accounting issues in hightech firms, and the capital market effects and information content of accounting measures.

Prior to his academic career, Professor Cedergren spent six years in the Assurance practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in San Jose, California, where his responsibilities included financial statement audits and SarbanesOxley compliance for semiconductor clients in Silicon Valley. While at PwC, Professor Cedergren also worked on several stock option backdating investigations and related financial restatements, including those of Mercury Interactive, Marvell Technology Group, and Trident Microsystems.

Professor Cedergren obtained his PhD from the New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business, his BBA/MAcc from the University of WisconsinMadison, and is a CFA charterholder and Certified Public Accountant (licensed in California).

Mary Brooke Billings, Matthew Cedergren, Svenja Dube (Working), Do Managers Respond to Litigation With Silence?.

Matthew Cedergren (Working), Joining the Conversation: How Quiet is the IPO Quiet Period?.

Mary Brooke Billings, Matthew Cedergren, Stephen Ryan (Working), R&D Jumps as Exercises of Real Continuation Call Options.

Matthew Cedergren, Baruch Lev, Paul Zarowin (Under Revision), SFAS 142, Conditional Conservatism, and Acquisition Profitability and Risk.

Matthew Cedergren, Changling Chen, Kai Chen (Working), The Implication of Unrecognized Intangible Assets on the Relation between Market Valuation and Debt Valuation Adjustment.

Mary Brooke Billings and Matthew Cedergren (2015), Strategic silence, insider selling and litigation risk, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 59 (23), pp. 119142.

Abstract: Prior work finds that managers beneficially time their purchases, but not sales, prior to forecasts. Focusing on if (as opposed to when) a forecast is given, we link insider selling to silence in advance of earnings disappointments. This raises the question of whether the absence of incriminating trading drives reductions in litigation risk potentially attributed to warnings. We find that the absence of a warning combined with the presence of selling exacerbates the consequences associated with the individual behaviors. Yet, selling prior to a warning typically does not offset all of the warning?s benefit. In so doing, we supply the first robust evidence of a litigation benefit associated with warning.

Past Courses

ACCT202 FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING II

Covers liabilities and equities, especially longterm debt, convertible securities, equity issuance, dividends, share repurchases, employee stock options, pensions, leases, deferred tax, and derivative securities. Related topics covered include computation of diluted earnings per share, disclosure issues, earnings management, and basic financial statement analysis of cash flows.

AAA/Deloitte/J. Michael Cook Doctoral Consortium Fellow, 2014 Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, 2013

Knowledge @ Wharton

• Is the U.S. Stock Market Headed Higher — or for a Crash?, Knowledge @ Wharton 05/02/2017
• The Link between Strategic Silence and Litigation, Knowledge @ Wharton 11/03/2015