Christian Leuz, the Joseph Sondheimer Professor of International Economics, Finance and Accounting at Chicago Booth, received the 2011 Deloitte Wildman Medal for excellence in accounting research from the American Accounting Association.
He was honored for his research, “Accounting Convergence and the Potential Adoption of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) by the U.S.,” published as a two-part series in Accounting Horizons.
The Deloitte Wildman Medal recognizes research judged to have made or likely to make the most significant contribution to the practice of accounting, including audit, tax and management services.
The research was conducted with Luzi Hall, an assistant professor at Wharton, and Peter Wysocki, an associate professor at the University of Miami School of Business. Hall and Wysocki also received the Deloitte Wildman Medal this year.
In the first part of their research, “Conceptual Underpinnings and Economic Analysis,” the authors describe the potential impact and weigh the costs and benefits of the adoption of IFRS in the U.S. In the second part, “Political Factors and Future Scenarios for U.S. Accounting Standards,” they extend their economic analysis to consider political issues as well as possible ways U.S. accounting standards could evolve in light of the growing prevalence of IFRS around the world.
The award-winning research grew out of an earlier independent research report Leuz and his coauthors prepared for the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The FASB sought the professors for their expertise in matters of international accounting and asked them to weigh in on whether the Securities and Exchange Commission should permit, or even require, IFRS for U.S. firms.
Leuz received a doctorate degree in business economics in 1996 and a postdoctoral degree in 2000, both from J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.
He received the Deloitte Wildman Medal in Denver at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Accounting Association.
—Prof. Chuan He
