• Homepage and Contact Info
• Curriculum Vitae
• Research Papers
• Courses Taught

Editors

Rick Antle, Yale School of Management
Froystein Gjesdal, NHH (Norway)
Pierre Jinghong Liang, Carnegie Mellon University

Essays on Accounting Theory in Honour of Joel Demski is a celebration of a scholar and his scholarship. Joel Demski has been a potent force in the accounting scholarly landscape for the last forty years. During his distinguished and prolific professional careers at Chicago, Columbia, Stanford, Yale, and Florida, Joel has made path-breaking contributions both in accounting and in economics. As an educator, he has profoundly influenced the lives of his many students. As a member of the broader academic community, he has been tireless in building scholarly environments and in caring for his resident institutions and the profession at large. This volume in Joel’s honor, along with a companion conference held on October 15, 2005 in Gainesville, Florida, is one way for his students, colleagues and friends to express gratitude and admiration for all he has done for the accounting profession, for accounting scholarhip, and for the institutions he has helped build.

The volume opens with a review of Joel’s contributions to accounting and economics by his longtime colleague and friend, Jerry Feltham, Professor Emeritus at University of British Columbia. In this sweeping review and tribute, Jerry covers not only many specific contributions by Joel and his doctoral students, but also the general path-breaking approach to accounting thought which he and Joel led - and which forever changed accounting scholarship. It also contains entertaining stories, such as the origin of the term “Felski partnership.”

The book is then divided into four parts. Part I, titled General Theory, contains contributing chapters by pioneering theorists including John Christensen, Ronald Dye, John Fellingham, and Froystein Gjesdal. The topics center on basic incentive problems involving accounting reporting and disclosure. Part II, Applied Theory, contains chapters by Rick Antle, Anil Arya, Jonathan Glover, Jack Hughes, Steve Huddart, Carolyn Levine, and others on topics ranging from bonus caps, the controllability principle, real options, and corporate insider trading. Part III focuses on connections to practice and contains a chapter by Joseph Gerako, Christopher Ittner and David Larcker, as well as a popular case on procurement costing by economist William Rogerson.

Essays on Accounting Theory in Honour of Joel Demski ends with Part IV, containing comments and perspectives by Gary Sundem and Shyam Sunder. Both pay tributes to Joel’s profound influence on their professional lives and scholarly perspectives. Also included is a list of published writings by Joel Demski from 1967 to Spring 2006.