Secondary Titles (1)

• Arthur M. Weimer Faculty Fellow

Social

Biography

Brian Miller's educational background consists of an undergraduate in Finance and Accounting from Cedarville University, M.B.A. in Finance and International Business from the University of Cincinnati, and a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University.... He also holds CPA license in the state of Ohio. He began working as an auditor at BKD and then held several finance positions at Procter and Gamble including managing a multi-billion dollar cost forecast.

Miller has been a faculty member at Indiana University since 2008. He taught Cost Accounting for seven years before transitioning to teaching Honors Managerial Accounting. Occasionally, he has also guest lectured in various IU doctoral seminars on accounting empirical research. He has received several Trustee Teaching Awards during my time at Indiana University.

Miller's research interests are in the areas of corporate disclosure, fraud, credit risk assessment, and executive reputation. One of his research articles entitled “The Importance of Distinguishing Errors from Irregularities in Restatement Research: The Case of Restatements and CEO/CFO Turnover” (with K. Hennes and A. Leone published in The Accounting Review - 2008) develops a methodology for distinguishing between restatements that are intentional (irregularities) and those that are caused by errors. This distinction helps clarify prior research that found minimal executive turnover after misreporting earnings. This study was recently awarded the both the 2012 Emerald Citation of Excellence Award recognizing “the 50 most outstanding articles published in the top 300 management journals in the world” and the 2013 American Accounting Associations Notable Contribution to the Literature Award.

Another stream of literature examines the impacts of the readability of financial filings on equity and debt market participants. Finally, Miller has a stream of research examining the role of board performance and managerial ability in equity and debt market.

Read more

Industry Expertise (7)

Accounting

Banking

Capital Markets

Education/Learning

Investment Banking

Investment Management

Research

Areas of Expertise (3)

Financial Disclosure

Managerial Reputation

Corporate Governance

Accomplishments (4)

Notable Contribution to the Accounting Literature Award (professional)

2013 Awarded by the American Accounting Association

Teaching Award (professional)

2013 Awarded by Indiana University Trustees

Citations of Excellence Award (professional)

2012 Awarded by Emerald Publishing

Smeal Dissertation Research Award (professional)

2008 Awarded by Penn State Alumni Association

Education (3)

The Pennsylvania State University: Ph.D., Accounting 2008

University of Cincinnati: M.B.A, Finance and International Business 1998

Cedarville University: B.A, Accounting and Finance 1994

Links (1)

• Faculty Web Page

Articles (5)

The Impact of Narrative Disclosure Readability on Bond Ratings and the Cost of Debt Capital

Review of Accounting Studies

Forthcoming Prior research on the determinants of credit ratings has focused primarily on rating agencies’ use of quantitative accounting information, but the impact of financial disclosures, particularly textual attributes, on the bond rating process has gone relatively unexplored. This study examines the potential impact of the financial disclosure narrative on various bond market outcomes. We find that less readable financial disclosures are associated with less favorable ratings (higher default risk), greater bond rating agency disagreement, and a higher cost of debt capital. To address ...

view more

Managerial Ability and Credit Risk Assessment

Management Science

2017 Research on the credit rating process has primarily focused on how rating agencies incorporate firm characteristics into their rating opinions. We contribute to this literature by examining the impact of managerial ability on the credit rating process. Given debt market participants’ interest in assessing default risk, we begin by documenting that higher managerial ability is associated with lower variability in future earnings and stock returns. We then show that higher managerial ability is associated with higher credit ratings (i.e., lower assessments of credit risk). To provide more ...

view more

Initial Evidence on the Market Impact of the XBRL Mandate

Review of Accounting Studies

2014 This study examines whether more frequent mandated disclosure is associated with faster price formation. Despite regulators’ claims that increased mandated disclosure frequency should provide more timely access to information, prior studies have not found evidence consistent with increases in mandated disclosure leading to more timely price formation. We examine a recent SEC mandate that increased the number of 8-K items that were required to be filed with the SEC on a timely basis. We show that after the regulation there was both an expected increase in the ...

view more

Macroeconomic Evidence on the Impact of Mandatory IFRS Adoption on Equity and Debt Markets

Journal of Accounting and Public Policy

2015 This study investigates whether mandatory IFRS adoption is associated with increased foreign portfolio investment into the adopting country’s debt and equity markets. Using macroeconomic data and a pre–post design centered in 2005, we find that IFRS adoption has a significantly greater effect on foreign debt than on foreign equity investment flows. This result is consistent with the notion that debt investors are greater consumers of financial statement information. We find that the increase in foreign equity investment around IFRS adoption is limited to countries that ...

view more

Determinants and Market Consequences of Auditor Dismissals after Accounting Restatements

The Accounting Review

2014 This study examines the conditions under which financial restatements lead corporate boards to dismiss external auditors and how the market responds to those dismissal announcements. We find that auditors are more likely to be dismissed after more severe restatements but that the severity effect is primarily attributable to the dismissal of non-Big 4 auditors rather than Big 4 auditors. We also document that among corporations with Big 4 auditors, those that are larger and more complex operationally are less likely to dismiss their auditors. Combined, this evidence ...

view more