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Thursday, 12 January 2012

A leading WA scholar who co-authored a paper that revolutionised global understanding of the impact of corporate disclosure on share prices has been appointed joint Presidential Scholar for 2012 by the American Accounting Association (AAA).

Emeritus Professor Philip Brown, of The University of Western Australia, has accepted the appointment with his co-author and colleague from the University of Chicago, Professor Ray Ball.

Acting UWA Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bill Louden, said the latest international recognition of Professor Brown's work further acknowledged him as a global leader in his field.

"As one of the leading scholars in the UWA Business School, he exemplifies the University's aspirations to be among the world's top 50 universities by 2050," Professor Louden said.

Professors Brown and Ball's paper, entitled "An Empirical Evaluation of Accounting Income Numbers", was published in the Journal of Accounting Research in 1968.

It was the first time the influence of companies' annual reports on ebbs and flows of the stock market had been scientifically analysed and evaluated in the centuries since accounting began.  The colleagues showed stock price changes could be used to measure the extent to which information was useful to investors.

In 1986 they received the AAA's inaugural award for seminal contributions to accounting literature and are credited with having laid the foundation for much of modern accounting literature.

Professor Brown is author and co-author of scores of books, journal articles and conference papers and was one of the inaugural inductees in the Australian Accounting Hall of Fame last year.  In 1991, Professor Brown was the AAA's Distinguished International Visiting Lecturer and in 1991/1992 the inaugural Coopers and Lybrand-Accounting Association of Australia and New Zealand Visiting Research Professor in Australasia.

Professor Brown will join Professor Ball to address the Presidential Scholar Plenary Session at the August 2012 annual meeting of the AAA to reflect on "The Seed that Made a Difference: Ball and Brown [1968]".

Media references

Emeritus Professor Philip Brown (UWA Business School)  (+61 8)  6488 2899
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 00 700 783

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