Back when I was a lad, the most common refrain heard from financial economics folks in accounting or Auditing was if ” you could see in the brain” that X or Y psychology effect was demonstrated, they would be more willing to accept experimental research in accounting. One would assume that would mean that they would be willing to hire psychology based faculty and support psychology based accounting research.

Well today we have the evidence, and have had it for well over a decade! While the odd psychology based theory has been found to be implausible by cognitive neuroscience research, the overwhelming finding is that those pen and pencil lab based psychology research results have stood the test of “seeing into the brain”.

So, why do we not see accounting areas at Chicago, Wharton, Stanford et al hiring top behavioural accounting researchers and supporting PhD students in those areas???? Hmmm, either they lied when they said brain evidence would convince them or they do not keep up with the research literature that demonstrates it. And these are our American “elite” universities?????