Douglas J. Skinner

Douglas J. Skinner is a financial economist with expertise in corporate disclosure practices, corporate financial reporting, corporate finance, and valuation. His research addresses (1) the causes and capital-market effects of managers’ corporate-disclosure choices, including guidance practices; (2) the stock-price effects of earning announcements and related disclosures, especially as they pertain to the efficiency of securities markets; (3) earnings management, accounting irregularities, and accounting fraud; (4) corporate payout policy (dividends and share repurchases); (5) shareholder activism; and (6) the economics of the audit market. Prof. Skinner has a line of research that addresses Japanese accounting, auditing, and corporate governance practices in particular.

Prof. Skinner’s research is widely published in prominent academic journals in accounting and finance, including the Accounting Review, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics. He is co-editor of the Journal of Accounting Research and was previously co-editor of the Journal of Accounting and Economics.

His research has been prominently featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Economist, the New York Times, and Bloomberg Businessweek. In 2010, Prof. Skinner was named one of the top business school professors in the world in the Financial Times’ Global MBA Rankings.

Prof. Skinner serves as an independent trustee and chair of the audit committee of Harbor Funds, a large mutual fund complex based in Chicago. From time to time Prof. Skinner provides litigation-related consulting services as a financial economist and an accounting and disclosure expert in complex accounting- and valuation-related matters, including securities cases.

Prof. Skinner has taught in all of Booth’s degree and Executive Education programs, including in classes that cover financial accounting and corporate financial reporting, cost (managerial) accounting, corporate finance and valuation, and corporate disclosure.