About
Paul A. Zarowin is a Professor of Accounting at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, where he has been a faculty member since 1984. He earned his B.A. in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977, and his M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Business Economics from the University of Chicago in 1981 and 1985, respectively. Professor Zarowin's research focuses on the relationship between stock market prices and financial accounting data, examining how and why this relation varies over time and across firms, and how factors such as firms, regulators, and the economic environment influence this relationship. His recent work investigates the extent to which stock prices reflect firms' future prospects and how this is affected by disclosures, accounting choices, and regulations. He has published extensively in leading journals including the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, the Review of Accounting Studies, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Professor Zarowin teaches Financial Accounting and Financial Reporting and Analysis to undergraduate and MBA students at NYU Stern.
Research topics
- Economics
- Macroeconomics
- Monetary economics
- Accounting
- Business
- Finance
- Engineering
Selected publications
Once Is Not Enough: An Analysis of Management Updates of Annual Earnings Forecasts
Journal of Accounting Auditing & Finance · 2025-11-05
articleSenior authorWe document a relatively new common phenomenon: managers update their forecasts of annual earnings, often in all interim quarters (i.e., regular updates). More consistent with regular updates being predetermined than being spontaneously issued, we find unique patterns of regular updates diverging from conventional knowledge about annual forecasts. First, regular updaters’ initial forecasts are mostly pessimistic relative to reported earnings, while nonupdated forecasts with similar horizons are mostly optimistic. Second, revisions, if updated only once, are more often downward than upward, while the opposite is true for regular updates. Third, earlier updates in a series of regular updates are more likely to reiterate prior forecasts (i.e., with the same width or midpoint) than later updates and sporadic updates. Forecast updates appear to be informative to analyst revisions. Following the initiation of regular updates, firms enjoy a greater improvement in their information environment compared to nonregular updating firms. Together, our findings suggest that regular updating has important implications to researchers and investors.
Journal of Business Finance & Accounting · 2025-12-27
articleOpen accessSenior authorCorrespondingABSTRACT We investigate whether public capital markets facilitate or hinder investment, addressing conflicting findings between US and European studies. While some argue that stock market pressures induce short‐termism, others contend that public firms invest more efficiently due to greater access to capital. Using a multi‐country European dataset, we show that public firms invest more and are more sensitive to investment opportunities than private firms, and that prior US results suggesting investment myopia in public firms are likely driven by selection bias in private firm datasets. Our analysis shows that the source of the different US versus European results is that the Sageworks database of US private firms likely over‐represents more successful firms that raise external capital to fund investment. Unlike the United States, where private firm reporting is voluntary, European financial disclosure requirements present a sample of private firms that is less susceptible to self‐selection. We demonstrate that imposing a Sageworks‐style selection bias on European private firms reverses the results, replicating the patterns found in the US studies. Our findings underscore the critical role of selection bias in shaping conclusions on capital market effects and call for greater scrutiny in private firm data comparisons.
Can the Stock Market Capitalize R&D Expenditures?* (*When Firms Aren't Mandated to)
2024 · 1 citations
Senior authorCorresponding- Business
- Monetary economics
- Economics
R&D Accounting, Earnings Management, and Investment Efficiency
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01
articleOpen accessSenior authorCapitalization vs Expensing and the Behavior of R&D Expenditures
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01
articleOpen accessSenior authorIs Corporate Investment and Stock Market Listing Really a Puzzle?
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01 · 1 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorCapitalization vs. expensing and the behavior of R&D expenditures
Review of Accounting Studies · 2021 · 32 citations
Senior authorCorresponding- Accounting
- Business
- Monetary economics
Recap of the 30th annual conference on Financial Economics and Accounting, November 1–2, 2019
Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting · 2020
Senior authorCorresponding- Accounting
- Economics
- Finance
Disclosure of Financial Statement Line Items and Insider Trading Around Earnings Announcements
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01 · 4 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorOrganizational structure and earnings quality of private and public firms
Review of Accounting Studies · 2019-06-28 · 51 citations
articleSenior authorCorresponding
Frequent coauthors
- 11 shared
Dennis Oswald
- 9 shared
Massimiliano Bonacchi
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
- 9 shared
Jenny Wu Tucker
- 7 shared
Stephen G. Ryan
New York University
- 6 shared
Daniel Cohen
Vanderbilt University
- 5 shared
Joshua Livnat
New York University
- 4 shared
Michael Tang
Florida International University
- 4 shared
Randall Mørck
Awards & honors
- New York University Presidential Fellowship
- Peat Marwick National Research Fellowship
- Glucksman Institute Fellowship
- Resume-aware match score
- Save to shortlist
- AI-drafted outreach
See your match with Paul Zarowin
PhdFit ranks faculty by your research interests, methods, and publications — grounded in their actual work, not templates.
- Free to start
- No credit card
- 30-second signup