Dear Colleagues and Students,

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA) will host the “UM Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series” on 28/11/2023 (Tuesday) and is pleased to invite Prof. Xin CHANG as the speaker.

Title: Discontinuous Distribution of Test Statistics Around Significance Thresholds in Empirical Accounting Studies
Speaker: Prof. Xin CHANG, Professor of Finance, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore

Date: 28/11/2023 (Tuesday)
Time: 10:30 – 12:00
Language: English
Venue: E22-G004

Registraiton: https://go.um.edu.mo/fns7iybe

Abstract:

We examine test statistics (e.g., p-values and t-statistics) reported in experimental and archival studies published in six leading accounting journals, finding discontinuities in their distributions around conventional significance thresholds (p-values of 0.05 and 0.01). Specifically, we find an unusual abundance of test statistics that are just significant. Further analysis reveals that these discontinuities are more prominent in experimental than in archival studies. The difference in discontinuity between experimental and archival studies is related to several proxies for researcher degrees of freedom. Overall, we provide suggestive evidence that some researchers use exercise discretion to obtain and report statistically significant results and show how such behaviors differ according to research method in the accounting literature. Our findings indicate that a healthy skepticism of some just-significant test statistics is warranted.

Speaker’s Bio:

Professor Xin CHANG is a Professor of Finance and Associate Dean (Research) at Nanyang Business School. His research primarily focuses on corporate finance, particularly capital structure, corporate innovation, sustainable finance, and corporate social/environmental responsibility. He has published extensively in top-tier business journals such as the Journal of Finance. His research findings were used by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the U.S. to support the new regulation rules and gained media coverage in Business Week, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and many others. Before returning to NTU in 2017, he held tenured positions as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne, and a Professor of Financial Economics (University Reader) and John Maynard Keynes Fellow in Financial Economics at the University of Cambridge. He is also an associate editor for the International Review of Finance and Asia-Pacific Journal of Financial Studies.

For enquiries: carlaleong@um.edu.mo

Best Regards,
Faculty of Business Administration