About

Joseph P. Weber is the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management and a Professor of Accounting at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research specializes in empirical work on the importance of accounting information in financial contracts. Weber's recent work documents how innovations in the commercial debt market, such as performance pricing, enable more efficient contracting by reducing the expected renegotiation costs of contracts. His research has been published in prominent journals including The Accounting Review, the Journal of Accounting Research, and the Journal of Accounting and Economics. When not engaged in research, Weber teaches the core financial accounting class to first-year MBA students at MIT Sloan. He holds a BSBA in accounting from Bucknell University and a PhD in accounting from Pennsylvania State University.

Research topics

• Finance
• Accounting
• Business
• Actuarial science
• Economics
• Monetary economics
• Financial economics

Selected publications

• How Good Is Goodwill Accounting? Comparative Evidence on Post-FAS 141(R) Acquired Intangibles Accounting

  The Accounting Review · 2026-02-04

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT Concerns that goodwill impairments unresponsiveness to declining performance produces inflated goodwill led standard-setters to reconsider post-acquisition impairment-only accounting. We use granular large-scale data to provide institutionally relevant novel descriptive evidence motivated by this hotly debated accounting standard. Comparing goodwill versus other acquired intangibles growth rates for firms reporting goodwill throughout the 2010–2020 post-FAS 141(R) period provides no evidence of runaway goodwill inflation concerns. For firms with goodwill anytime during 2010–2020 we use Shapley values to explore the explanatory power of performance factors affecting goodwill impairments. Consistent with standard-setters’ intent, single-segment market performance explains 81 percent of goodwill impairment incidence variation (controlling for Fama-French-38 industry and time fixed-effects). Limited evidence of reduced impairment incidence after incorporating FASB sanctioned control premia or alternative market values provides little support for discretionary impairment avoidance. Conversely, higher impairment incidence when book values incorporate IFRS (2020) proposed off-balance-sheet headroom or market-to-book decreases supports discretionary impairment recognition. Data Availability: The data used in this study are obtained from commercial sources, including Compustat, Calcbench, I/B/E/S, FactSet Mergerstat/BVR, and Peters and Taylor's intangible capital dataset. JEL Classifications: M41; M48; G34.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How Good is Goodwill Accounting? Comparative Evidence on post-FAS 141(R) Acquired Intangibles Accounting

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Is the Goodwill Impairment-Only Model Broken? An Examination of Post-Acquisition Accounting for Goodwill versus Other Intangibles

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder? Do Fair Value Estimates Depend on Whether you are the Issuer or the Investor in Debt Securities?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Disclosure, Materiality Thresholds, and the Cost of Capital: Evidence from Federal Open Market Committee Announcements

  Management Science · 2024-02-21 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  We examine how managers’ disclosure decisions vary in response to monetary policy shocks. Specifically, we examine the extent to which firms issue Forms 8-K, press releases, and management forecasts following unexpected changes to the target federal funds rate. We find consistent evidence that unexpected decreases (increases) in the Federal Open Market Committee target rate lead to larger increases (decreases) in disclosure by firms that are more sensitive to monetary policy shocks. Furthermore, the disclosure response to target rate surprises is concentrated in Form 8-K items that require a materiality-based decision and hold when we examine a sample of M&A-participating firms. Extended tests show that our results are not attributable to changes in the cost of capital leading to increased disclosure because firms are simultaneously raising capital or hyping their stock. Overall, our results are consistent with arguments raised in recent research papers that changes in cost of capital influence firms’ materiality thresholds, which can affect their decision to disclose. This paper was accepted by Suraj Srinivasan, accounting. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.01896 .

  PublisherDOI

• IPO price formation and analyst coverage

  Review of Accounting Studies · 2023 · 8 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Economics
  • Financial economics
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Audit Partners’ Role in Material Misstatement Resolution: Survey and Interview Evidence

  Journal of Accounting Research · 2023 · 34 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Accounting
  • Actuarial science

  ABSTRACT Auditors are expected to identify and resolve material misstatements (MMs) in management's financial statements. However, beyond the audit opinion, the audit process is opaque. To address this, we independently survey 462 audit partners and interview 24 audit partners, CFOs, and audit committee members on how partners assess and address MM risk, resolve MMs, and the consequences of MMs. Partners identify MMs in approximately 9% (15%) of public (private) engagements and use qualitative factors to waive apparent MMs. Loan covenant and going‐concern issues increase MM risk more than earnings benchmark issues. Partners point to a variety of both auditor and client factors as threats to audit effectiveness. Partners often rely on rapport with management and involve the national office and audit committee in resolving MMs. Partner incentives around restatements are context specific. Our results provide new insights into the auditor's role in financial reporting that are relevant to academics, practitioners, and regulators.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• IPO Price Formation and Analyst Coverage

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Audit Partners’ Role in Material Misstatement Resolution: Survey and Interview Evidence

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 18 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Evidence on the Importance of the Financial Reporting Function in Municipal Governments

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021 · 5 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Finance
  • Accounting
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Anne Beatty

  The Ohio State University

  46 shared

• W. SCOTT LIAO

  18 shared

• Reining Petacchi

  12 shared

• Michael Willenborg

  University of Connecticut

  10 shared

• Anna M. Costello

  8 shared

• Scott Liao

  University of Toronto

  7 shared

• Wayne R. Guay

  University of Pennsylvania

  5 shared

• Mark E. Peecher

  4 shared

Awards & honors

• Seegal Prize (2018)