Evidence-based policymaking: promise, challenges and opportunities for accounting and financial markets research**

By Christian Leuz. Accounting and Business Research, 2018

122 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The use of evidence and economic analysis in policymaking is on the rise, and accounting standard setting and financial regulation are no exception. This article discusses the promise of evidence-based policymaking in accounting and financial markets as well as the challenges and opportunities for research supporting this endeavour. In principle, using sound theory and robust empirical evidence should lead to better policies and regulations. But despite its obvious appeal and substantial promise, evidence-based policymaking is easier demanded than done. It faces many challenges related to the difficulty of providing relevant causal evidence, lack of data, the reliability of published research and the transmission of research findings. Overcoming these challenges requires substantial infrastructure investments for generating and disseminating relevant research. To illustrate this point, I draw parallels to the rise of evidence-based medicine. The article provides several concrete suggestions for the research process and the aggregation of research findings if scientific evidence is to inform policymaking. I discuss how policymakers can foster and support policy-relevant research, chiefly by providing and generating data. The article also points to potential pitfalls when research becomes increasingly policy-oriented.

Subfields: Accounting, Management Information Systems, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fcac761bcca8568fd7518ee1819cadda8084aff2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Accounting

In Management Information Systems

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

Shall We Talk? The Role of Interactive Investor Platforms in Corporate Communication (2020, background): “Recent years have witnessed a strong trend towards evidence-based policymaking, wherein policy decisions are made on the basis of best available scientific and empirical evidence (Leuz 2018).”
The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Information in Supply-Chain Contracting: Evidence from the Expansion of CSR Rating Coverage (2021, background): “Mandatory (regulatory) settings, in comparison, face identification challenges such as potential anticipation, early adoption, or avoidance by firms as well as the lack of control firms within the same regulatory setting (Leuz 2018).”