Over my time as an accounting academic I have seen lots of trends in accounting research. Capital markets readers probably recognize the era of the “toy model”, where every capital markets paper had to feature some linear algebra! (Yep this actually occurred in the late 1990’s in partial response to the Feltham Ohlson work on accounting valuation models!)

In experimental research ( in the 1990’s when auditing was the main area of experimental research) we had a two experiment minimum that by the early 2000’s became one experiment with exactly the right subjects/participants to do the task. Experiments in the 1980’s tended to feature three or more experiments depending on whether you counted the 3a and 3b experiments as one or two!

Today we are in the era of an single experiment plus a mediation or moderation model often done using the Preacher and Haynes macro! But I am beginning to sense this era too is passing, that while models are still invited, we are slowly seeing the norm move back towards the multi- experiment paper. While this observation is still somewhat tentative, I think I am spotting a new trend.

But did you ever wonder WHY? Is it merely a matter of taste? Mimicking? Or I something deeper at work?