About

Justin J. Hopkins is the J. Harvie Wilkinson Jr. Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Accounting area at the Darden School of Business. His research interests include the effects of regulation on financial reporting, governance, and economic outcomes. He has taught various courses across Darden's programs and at the UVA Law School, including electives on financial reporting and financial statement analysis. Hopkins has authored numerous cases to help students understand financial reports, the economic drivers of a firm's financial condition, and governance characteristics of companies. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Law and Economics, Management Science, and Review of Accounting Studies. Prior to joining Darden, he obtained his Ph.D. from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also taught an elective on the interaction of public policy and accounting. He has worked as an auditor for Ernst & Young LLP, and has consulted for the Justice Department and Asian Development Bank. Additionally, he is a returned Peace Corps volunteer from the Dominican Republic and has been involved in coaching baseball and volunteering in Charlottesville scouting organizations.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Finance
• Business
• Management
• Accounting
• Economics
• Law

Selected publications

• Accounting Guidance for Stock Awards

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• An Examination of Legal Risk When the Corporate Secretary is the Chief Legal Officer

  2024

  • Political Science
  • Management
  • Law
  PublisherDOI

• An examination of legal risk when the Corporate Secretary is the Chief Legal Officer

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Getting Ready to Rumble: Governance of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Rise of VIEs in China: Balancing State Control and Access to Foreign Capital

  Journal of Financial Reporting · 2022 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Business

  ABSTRACT We investigate Chinese firms' use of variable interest entities (VIEs) to list in the U.S. Since VIEs are explicitly designed to circumvent Chinese restrictions on foreign investments, they potentially increase the risk of government intervention and agency conflicts within the firm. The use of VIEs among Chinese firms listed in the U.S. is widespread, growing, and associated with valuation discounts of approximately 25 percent relative to Chinese non-VIE firms listed in the U.S. The discount varies predictably with events that change VIE risks and is tempered by better oversight (large auditor and institutional investment) and factors that lower regulatory risk (political connection and high media visibility). To remediate investor concerns, VIE firms are more likely to have these characteristics. Finally, we find that the risk of intervention disciplines VIE managers who curry government favor by contributing to disaster relief and hiring excess employees. Data Availability: Data are available from public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: G30; G34; M41; K22.

  PublisherDOI

• The Charitable Tax Deduction and Civic Engagement

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-07-22

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In an era characterized by inequalities of income and influence, political polarization, and the segregation of social spaces, the income tax deduction for charitable contributions would appear to abet some of our worst social ills because it allows wealthy individuals to steer public funds to their preferred charities. But we argue that now is the time to expand and refocus—not abolish—the tax subsidy for charitable giving. Previous assessments of the charitable deduction have focused on how it helps charities but ignored an essential benefit of giving: its effect on the donor. We show that the charitable deduction increases volunteerism along with financial giving, and we report new evidence that volunteerism is associated with broader civic and political engagement, including engagement with people of different cultures, races, and ethnicities. Since people tend to undervalue the social and relational goods that flow from civic participation, the charitable deduction is a helpful corrective. We also report evidence that civic engagement is unequally distributed and propose a new refundable tax credit that turns low- and middleincome households from clients of charities to donors, which can both empower them and help remedy inequalities in civic and political participation.

  Publisher

• Career concerns for revealing misreporting

  Review of Accounting Studies · 2021 · 5 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Accounting
  • Business
  PublisherDOI

• A Note on Leases

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Does Shareholder Litigation Matter?

  Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · 2019-08-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This study examines whether an unexpected shock to the risk of class-action lawsuits filed under securities laws affects the level of discretionary revenues, the market reaction to unexpected revenues, and the likelihood of restatements. I identify a court decision that reduced the risk of shareholder litigation for firms headquartered within a single jurisdiction. Subsequent to the decision, the likelihood of a restatement and the level of discretionary revenues increased while the market reaction to unexpected revenues declined for firms headquartered in this jurisdiction relative to firms headquartered in other jurisdictions. Further, these changes were driven primarily by firms that faced the highest risk of shareholder litigation. Overall, results indicate that the risk of shareholder litigation constrains managers from making opportunistic reporting choices. This study is relevant to the global policy debate about class-action litigation as a mechanism to regulate securities markets.

  PublisherDOI

• The cost of disclosure regulation: evidence from D&O insurance and nonmeritorious securities litigation

  Review of Accounting Studies · 2018-03-24 · 39 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Dain C. Donelson

  University of Iowa

  8 shared

• Quinn Curtis

  University of Virginia

  5 shared

• Christopher G. Yust

  Texas A&M University

  5 shared

• Edward L. Maydew

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  3 shared

• Jianxin Zhao

  Emory University

  2 shared

• Jagadison K. Aier

  George Mason University

  2 shared

• Syrena Shirley

  2 shared

• Mark H. Lang

  2 shared