PhD

Accounting

Students in MIT Sloan’s Accounting research group are encouraged to transcend traditional accounting boundaries by integrating comprehensive knowledge of economics and finance into their studies on contemporary financial reporting, disclosure, and contractual issues. The group’s rigorous curriculum, which includes seminars in accounting and finance, equips students with the economic acumen akin to that of MIT Sloan’s Finance PhD candidates. Leveraging the expertise of distinguished faculty members like Michelle Hanlon, whose research focuses on taxation and its intersection with financial accounting, S.P. Kothari, known for his contributions to finance and accounting, and Andrew Sutherland, who explores regulatory impacts on audit markets, students engage with cutting-edge research that is highly relevant to academics, practitioners, and standard setters. 

Research from Accounting Faculty

MIT Kuo Sharper Center for Prosperity and Entrepreneurship

Growth markets are node-scarce, not idea-scarce

For years, physicists tried to answer a deceptively simple question: why do some things like cities, ideas, innovation ecosystems grow disproportionately larger and more influential than others? Why do a few nodes attract attention, resources, and talent, while most remain peripheral?

Jan 22, 2026
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Full-Time Faculty

Paul Asquith

Paul Asquith

Gordon Y Billard Professor of Finance

Paul Asquith is the Gordon Y Billard Professor of Finance and a Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Asquith is a specialist in corporate finance and a media source for the field of corporate finance and control, including…

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John E. Core

John E. Core

Nanyang Technological University Professor of Accounting

John E. Core is the Nanyang Technological University Professor and a Professor of Accounting at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Core has broad research interests in executive compensation and executive stock and option incentives, corporate…

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Michelle Hanlon

Michelle Hanlon

Deputy Dean for Faculty and Research

Michelle Hanlon is the Howard W. Johnson Professor, a Professor of Accounting, and Deputy Dean for Faculty and Research at the MIT Sloan School of Management Hanlon’s primary teaching at Sloan is the Taxes and Business Strategy class. She has won…

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S.P. Kothari

S.P. Kothari

Gordon Y Billard Professor of Accounting and Finance, Emeritus

S.P. Kothari is Gordon Y Billard Professor of Accounting and Finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Professor Kothari has senior executive experience in government, academia, and industry with expertise in strategic and policy issues,…

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