Sean Wang

Headshot of Sean Wang

Tenure and Tenure-Track Faculty

Assistant Professor

Accounting

Email

seanwang@smu.edu
Phone

214-768-2547
Office

DBMQ 2177
CV

CV

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Education

PhD, Accounting, Cornell University

Biography

Sean Wang is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at the Edwin L. Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Prior to joining Cox, he was previously an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he taught financial statement analysis, equity valuation, intermediate accounting and corporate finance.

Sean’s research focuses on the efficiency of investors and financial analysts when impounding information into stock prices. Some of his recent work examines how this process can be impacted by accounting regulations, geographic proximity, and investor psychology. He has also published research that examines the effects of narcissistic personalities on the decision making skills of executives.

His research has been extensively published in top academic journals such as the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Accounting Review and Management Science, and has been cited numerous times in the media by outlets such as The Economist, Bloomberg Businessweek, Wall Street Journal, NASDAQ, New York Times and Harvard Business Review.

Previously, Sean received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Duke University, and also holds master’s degrees in business administration from New York University and in biochemistry from the University of South Florida. In his spare time, Sean enjoys studying and applying research on optimal nutrition for longevity, mental and physical performance.

Teaching

ACCT 6202 Financial Accounting II

Research

Sean’s research focuses on the efficiency of investors when impounding information into stock prices. Some of his recent work examines how this process can be affected by accounting regulations, geographic proximity, and investor psychology. He has also published research that examines the effects of narcissistic personalities on the decision making skills of executives.

Publications

  1. “Firm-specific Information Processing and the Delayed Discovery of Macroeconomic News: Evidence from Earnings Announcement Returns.” (with J. Pan and E. Sul) https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4839711. Accepted at Review of Accounting Studies (2026).
  2. “Do Sell-side Analysts React Too Pessimistically to Bad News for Minority-led Firms Evidence from Target Price Valuations.” (with K. Rupar and H. Yoon) Journal of Accounting and Economics (2025), 79(1), 101707.
  3. “Acquisition Prices and the Measurement of Intangible Capital.” (with M. Ewens and R. Peters) Management Science (2025), 71(1), 407-427.
    • Data to measure intangible capital available for download: http://bit.ly/intan cap.
    • Presented at NBER Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (2020)
    • Featured in Morgan Stanley Investment Management White Papers “The Impact of Intangibles on Base Rates” (2021)
    • Featured in Morgan Stanley Investment Management White Papers “Return on Invested Capital” (2022)
  4. “CFO Narcissism and the Power of Persuasion Over Analysts: A Mixed-Methods Approach.” (with C. Ham, M. Piotrowski, and N. Seybert) https://doi.org/10.1007/s1 1142-025-09902-70 Review of Accounting Studies (2025).
    • Best Paper Award at 2023 AAA Accounting Behavior & Organizations Conference.
    • Presented at 2024 Review of Accounting Studies Conference
  5. “The Relationship between Non-GAAP earnings and Aggressive Estimates in Reported GAAP numbers.” (with R. Guggenmos, K. Rennekamp, and K. Rupar) Journal of Accounting Research (2022), 60(5), 1915-1945.
  6. “Asymmetric Timeliness and the Resolution of Investor Disagreement and Uncertainty at Earnings Announcements.” (with M. Barth, W. Landsman, and V. Raval) The Accounting Review (2020), 95(4), 23-50.
  7. “Informational Environments and the Relative Information Content of Analyst Recommendations and Insider Trades.” Accounting Organizations and Society (2019), 72, 61-73.
  8. “Know Thy Neighbor: Industry Clusters, Information Spillovers and Market Efficiency.” (with J. Engelberg and A. Ozoguz) Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (2018), 53(5), 1937-1961.
  9. “Narcissism is a Bad Sign: CEO Signature Size, Investment, and Performance.” (with C. Ham and N. Seybert) Review of Accounting Studies (2018), 23(1), 234-264.
    • As of 7/2024, this was in the 99th percentile of most cited papers (4th most cited paper out of 391 articles at RAST according to Web of Science) since its publication year.
  10. “CFO Narcissism and Financial Reporting Quality.” (with C. Ham, M. Lang, and N. Seybert) Journal of Accounting Research (2017), 55(5), 1089-1135.
    • As of 3/2024, this was in the 98th percentile of most cited papers (5th most cited paper out of 294 articles at JAR according to Web of Science) since its publication year.
  11. “News-driven return reversals: Liquidity provision ahead of earnings announcements.” (with E. So) Journal of Financial Economics (2014), 114, 20-35.
  12. “The Prevention of Excess Managerial Risk Taking.” (with E. Van Wesep) Journal of Corporate Finance (2014), 29, 579-593.