About

Maureen McNichols is The Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Accounting and Public and Private Management at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Her leading research focuses on earnings management and its implications for investors, as well as on analysts’ incentives, forecasts, and investment recommendations. Her work examines the role of earnings announcements in informing investors, the incentives and methods companies use to manage earnings, and the role of auditors in ensuring financial reporting quality. Her research has been published in leading accounting and finance journals and has received several Best Paper awards. She has served as an editor of the Review of Accounting Studies and has been involved with various editorial boards. McNichols has also contributed to teaching financial reporting across multiple Stanford programs, including undergraduate, law, MBA, and PhD courses, and has taught executive programs. Her professional service includes membership on the Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board Standing Advisory Group, and she has held roles on several Stanford university committees and boards. She is a CPA licensed in Illinois and holds degrees in accounting from the University of Illinois and UCLA.

Research topics

• Business
• Economics
• Accounting
• Actuarial science
• Finance

Selected publications

• The Market for Accountants

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Giving Credit Where It's Due: Misstatement Detection and Firm Disclosures

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Two-Sided Matching in the Audit Market

  The Accounting Review · 2025-01-17 · 4 citations

  article

  ABSTRACT We develop and estimate a two-sided matching model of auditors and clients. We find evidence that auditors and clients engage in matching based on their preferences on both observable and unobservable characteristics. This matching appears to partly explain the “Big 4 effect” on audit outcomes: after controlling for the effects of matching, we find that the positive influence of having a Big 4 auditor on serious restatements and serious comment letter conversations with the SEC either weakens or disappears. Collectively, our results highlight the importance of accounting for two-sided matching between auditors and clients in understanding the influence of auditors on clients’ financial reporting practices. JEL Classifications: M40; M42

  PublisherDOI

• Decoding Social Disclosure Decisions: A Field Experiment with Workforce Diversity Data

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Pharmacokinetics and Safety of Remdesivir in Pregnant and Nonpregnant Women With COVID-19: Results From IMPAACT 2032

  The Journal of Infectious Diseases · 2024-06-05 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  BACKGROUND: Pregnant people with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) experience higher risk for severe disease and adverse pregnancy outcomes, but no pharmacokinetic (PK) data exist to support dosing of COVID-19 therapeutics during pregnancy. We report PK and safety data for intravenous remdesivir in pregnancy. METHODS: IMPAACT 2032 was a phase 4 prospective, open-label, nonrandomized opportunistic study of hospitalized pregnant and nonpregnant women receiving intravenous remdesivir as part of clinical care. Intensive PK sampling was performed on infusion days 3, 4, or 5 with collection of plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Safety data were recorded from first infusion through 4 weeks after last infusion and at delivery. Geometric mean ratios (GMR) (90% confidence intervals [CI]) of PK parameters between pregnant and nonpregnant women were calculated. RESULTS: Fifty-three participants initiated remdesivir (25 pregnant; median gestational age, 27.6 weeks; interquartile range, 24.9-31.0 weeks). Plasma exposures of remdesivir, its 2 major metabolites (GS-704277 and GS-441524), and the free remdesivir fraction were similar between pregnant and nonpregnant participants. Concentrations of the active triphosphate (GS-443902) in PBMCs increased 2.04-fold (90% CI, 1.35-3.03) with each additional infusion in nonpregnant versus pregnant participants. Three adverse events in nonpregnant participants were related to treatment (1 grade 3; 2 grade 2 resulting in treatment discontinuation). There were no treatment-related adverse pregnancy outcomes or congenital anomalies detected. CONCLUSIONS: Plasma remdesivir PK parameters were comparable between pregnant and nonpregnant women, and no safety concerns were identified based on our limited data. These findings suggest no dose adjustments are indicated for intravenous remdesivir during pregnancy. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT04582266.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• EEO-1 Disclosure

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2023-01-26

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• EEO-1 Disclosure

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2023-01-26

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• EEO-1 Disclosure

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2023-01-26

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Bankruptcy in groups

  Review of Accounting Studies · 2023-07-26 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract We examine bankruptcy within business groups. Groups have incentives to support financially distressed subsidiaries, as the bankruptcy of a subsidiary may impose severe costs on the group as a whole. This is in part because, in several countries, bankruptcy courts often “pierce the corporate veil” and hold groups liable for their distressed subsidiaries’ obligations as if they were their own. Using a large cross-country sample of group-affiliated firms, we show that, by reallocating resources within the corporate structure, business groups actively manage intra-group credit risk to prevent costly within-group insolvencies. Moreover, we document that recent regulatory changes in the approval and disclosure of related party transactions are costly for business groups in that they constrain their ability to shield their subsidiaries from credit-risk shocks. Our study informs the current regulatory debate on related party transactions by highlighting an important cost of anti-self-dealing regulation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• EEO-1 Disclosure

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2023-01-26

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• William H. Beaver

  Palo Alto University

  32 shared

• Brett Trueman

  University of California, Los Angeles

  18 shared

• Reuven Lehavy

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  15 shared

• Maria Correia

  10 shared

• Sandra Burchett

  9 shared

• Arlene Bardeguez

  9 shared

• Brad M. Barber

  9 shared

• Karen K. Nelson

  7 shared

Education

• PhD Accounting, Graduate School of Management

  University of California Los Angeles

  1984

• M.S. in Accountancy

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  1976

• B.S. in Accountancy

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  1975

Awards & honors

• Davis Award (2024)
• Michelle R. Clayman Faculty Fellow (2022–23)
• Stand Up for Kids Guardian of Youth Award (2016)
• Susan Ford Dorsey Faculty Fellow (2015–16)
• Philip F. Maritz Faculty Fellow (2014–15)