Isenberg School Professor Receives Prestigious Financial Accounting Standards Board Appointment
Tue., Jun 17, 2008
On July 1, 2008 Ray Pfeiffer, a full professor in the UMass Amherst Isenberg School of Management, begins a year as Research Fellow with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in Norwalk, Connecticut.
The FASB is the nation’s principal standard-setting body for financial accounting practice. During the appointment, which is awarded to one senior financial accounting faculty member nationally each year, Pfeiffer will participate in a variety of FASB research projects. He expects to join a research project team with a focus on a topic of interest to him and also to assist other research teams on an “as-needed” basis.
In addition, Pfeiffer, who teaches financial accounting at the Isenberg School, will review and evaluate existing research from academic, industry, and regulatory sources for consumption by the FASB. He will also facilitate research-related communication within the FASB and between the FASB and accounting researchers beyond the board.
Pfeiffer’s longstanding interest in accounting regulations and public policy goes back at least as far as his Ph.D. dissertation, which investigated whether FASB disclosure requirements for mortgage banks gave investigators fair and sufficient information about investing in those banks. “On the front end, policy research in accounting isn’t about producing a correct outcome,” observes Pfeiffer. “It’s about examining evidence that helps determine which stakeholders gain and which stakeholders lose from specific policy rules and regulations.”
Professor Pfeiffer joined the Isenberg School in 1994, the same year that he received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the impact of financial accounting information on decisions by corporate managers, investors, and financial analysts. His papers have appeared in The Accounting Review, The Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, and other refereed journals. In 2003-2004, Professor Pfeiffer was one of three recipients of the UMass Amherst campus-wide Distinguished Teaching Award. In 1998-1999, he was honored with the Isenberg School’s Outstanding Teacher Award.