Stephen Hillegeist

Steve Hillegeist is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, USA. Professor Hillegeist received his Ph.D. and Master of Science in Accounting degrees from the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. In addition, he received a Bachelors of Arts degree in Economics from Princeton University, where he was an Academic All-American in football.

Prior to moving to Arizona State University in 2010, Professor Hillegeist spent five years at INSEAD in the Accounting and Control Area. Prior to INSEAD, he taught for seven years at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, where he received several teaching commendations. His teaching interests lie in designing internal cost systems that provide meaningful and actionable information for managers and executives. He is also interested in analyzing information and incentives systems in order to design optimal incentive and transfer pricing policies.

Professor Hillegeist’s research interests spans a variety of research areas, including (1) the determinants of firm's voluntary disclosure decisions and the effects of those decisions on the capital markets; (2) executive compensation; and (3) insider trading. His research is published in top accounting journals, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Management Science, and the Review of Accounting Studies. He serves as a frequent ad hoc referee for a number of leading academic accounting journals and has served as an ad hoc editor for Contemporary Accounting Research.

Research Interests:

• Market-Based Accounting Research
• Effects of Accounting Regulatory Changes
• Insider Trading
• Earnings Management
• Voluntary Disclosure
• Information Asymmetry

Education

• PhD University of California, Berkeley (1993 — 1998)
• Princeton University

Publications:

• "Financial Distress Risk and New CEO Compensation" with Woo-Jin Chang and Rachel Hayes. Management Science, 62(2) (2016), 479-501.
• "Directors' and Officers' Legal Liability Insurance, Audit Pricing, and Litigation Risk" with Hyseesoo H. Chung and Jinyoung P. Wynn. Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 34 (2015), 551-577.
• “The Incentives of Compensation Consultants and CEO Pay.” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 49, No. 3 (April 2010), 263-280.
• “The Effect of Earnings Surprises on Information Asymmetry,” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 47, No. 3 (June 2009), 208-225.
• “How Disclosure Quality Affects the Level of Information Asymmetry,” Review of Accounting Studies, vol. 12, No. 2-3 (September 2007), 443-477.
• “Conference Calls and Information Asymmetry,” Journal of Accounting and Economics, vol. 37, No. 3 (August 2004), 343-366.
• “Assessing the Probability of Bankruptcy,” Review of Accounting Studies, vol. 9, No. 1 (March 2004), 5-34.
• “Financial Reporting and Auditing Under Alternative Damage Apportionment Rules,” The Accounting Review, vol. 74, No. 3 (July 1999), 347-369.

Research Activity:

• "Institutional Ownership and Insider Trading" with Liwei Weng.
• "Capitalization of In-Process Research and Development under SFAS 141R and Information Asymmetry" with Hyeesoo (Sally) Chung, You-Il (Chris) Park, and Jinyoung P. Wynn.
• "Insider Trading and Post-Earnings Announcement Drift" with Lyungmae Choi and Lucile Faurel.
• Quasi-Indexer Ownership and Conditional Conservatism" with Fernando Penalva and Liwei Weng.
• "Skewness in Performance Metrics and CEO Compensation" with Woo-Jin Chang and Steven Monahan
• “Earnings Management to avoid Debt Covenant Violations” with Scott Dyreng, Stephen Hillegeist, and Fernando Penalva.
• “Reporting discretion and the information environment: The case of SFAS 95” with Stephen Brown and Steven Orpurt.
• "The Impact of Quarter Length on Analyst Forecast Errors and Firm’s Voluntary Disclosures" with James Kavourakis, Matthew Pinnuck, and Christopher R. Stewart
• "Usefulness of Analyst Forecasts at Loss Firms" with Lyungmae Choi and Lucile Faurel.