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Jennifer Francis

Robert L. Dickens Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Business Administration
Fuqua School of Business
Box 90005, Durham, NC 27708-0120
220A Allen Building, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


Jennifer Francis is the Robert L. Dickens Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

She earned a B.S. in Accounting at Bucknell University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a CPA for Price Waterhouse. Before joining the faculty at Duke, she taught at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago. Professor Francis has taught both core and elective classes, as well as PhD classes at Duke University. She is the winner of over a dozen awards for outstanding teaching, including the Bank of America award for contributions to teaching, research, and service.

Professor Francis’ research interests focus on the quality of financial reporting, the relevance of financial reports to investors, the role of securities’ analysts as information intermediaries, and equity valuation. Her research is published in a variety of journals, including the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, and The Accounting Review. She has served in numerous capacities in the American Accounting Association, and has been a visiting scholar at a number of institutions.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Robert L. Dickens Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Business Administration · 2024 - Present Fuqua School of Business
Professor Emeritus of Business Administration · 2024 - Present Fuqua School of Business

In the News


Published June 2, 2017
Fuqua and Nazarbayev University: Pioneering Business Education in Kazakhstan
Published October 31, 2016
Fuqua Professor Jennifer Francis Named Vice Provost for Academic Affairs

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Recent Publications


Payoffs to Aggressiveness

Conference Accounting Review · November 1, 2023 For a broad sample of firms, we use structural equations modeling to construct latent variables for real-action aggressiveness and reporting policy aggressiveness. We estimate the association between the latent variables and the associations of each latent ... Full text Cite

Non-random sampling and association tests on realized returns and risk proxies

Journal Article Review of Accounting Studies · June 1, 2021 This paper investigates how data requirements often encountered in archival accounting research can produce a data-restricted sample that is a non-random selection of observations from the reference sample to which the researcher wishes to generalize resul ... Full text Cite

Financial reporting for pollution reduction programs

Journal Article Management Science · December 1, 2020 We develop a conceptually grounded approach, based on the International Accounting Standards Board's conceptual framework, to the accounting for the rights and obligations embodied in a cap-and-trade program. Under this approach, firms recognize allowances ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


Duke and Johnson C. Smith University Collaborative Proposal to honor Wilhelmina M. Reuben-Cooke

Institutional SupportPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Duke Endowment · 2021 - 2026

NCLF Communications

Public ServicePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Mercatus Center · 2023 - 2023

NCLF Support

Public ServicePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by John William Pope Foundation · 2022 - 2023

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Education, Training & Certifications


Cornell University · 1987 Ph.D.