// Assistant Professor of Accounting · SMU Cox School of Business

When information breaks, who pays?

I study the forces that distort information in capital markets — racial bias in analyst forecasts, pharmaceutical disclosure suppression, narcissistic executives, and the cognitive limits of investor attention. My work spans accounting, finance, behavioral science, and public policy.

11Top-tier
publications
5Elite journals
JFE · JAE · JAR · TAR · MS
98thPercentile cited
Web of Science
Sean Wang
J. Financial
Economics
J. Acct &
Economics
J. Acct
Research
The Acct
Review
Management
Science
Research featured in
The EconomistThe Wall Street JournalThe New York TimesFinancial TimesHarvard Business ReviewABC NewsUSA TodayThe Washington Post
// latest

Updates

Mar 2026
Acceptance
"Firm-specific Information Processing and the Delayed Discovery of Macroeconomic News" accepted at Review of Accounting Studies.
Jan 2026
Conference
"CFO Narcissism and the Power of Persuasion Over Analysts" accepted at 2024 Review of Accounting Studies Conference.
Dec 2025
New Working Paper
"Embargoed Disclosure" — examining how pharmaceutical companies use embargo clauses to control clinical trial disclosure. Targeting JAE.
// research program

Three forces that distort markets

My career has been a sustained investigation into a single question: what happens when information systems in capital markets break down?

1

Information Bias & Discrimination

Racial prejudice and executive narcissism systematically distort financial intermediaries' output. I document these distortions, validate novel measurement approaches, and identify what mitigates them.

JAE 2025JAR 2017JAR 2022RAS 2018RAS Conf. 2024
2

Price Discovery & Attention

Cognitive constraints cause systematic delays in price discovery. Information acquisition paradoxically crowds out macro news. Microstructure frictions create predictable return patterns around earnings.

JFE 2014RAS 2026TAR 2020AOS 2019JFQA 2018
3

Transparency & Measurement

Firms and accounting standards suppress and omit critical information. Pharmaceutical embargoes, regulatory backfire effects, and the trillions in intangible capital missing from corporate balance sheets.

MS 2024WP: EmbargoWP: Bundling
// signature work

Featured papers

Selected publications — each distilled to one question and one takeaway.

57%
more negative valuations for Non-White CEOs after bad news
Journal of Accounting & Economics · 2025 57% more negative valuations
CEO Race and Analyst Judgments
with K. Rupar and H. Yoon
Question
Do analysts evaluate bad news differently when a firm has a non-White CEO?
Takeaway
The evidence suggests bias appears in a setting often assumed to be objective. Analysts' target prices are 57% more negative following bad news for non-White CEOs — a subconscious bias that attenuates with familiarity and varies with societal racial sentiment. Confirmed by randomized experiment.
Policy Relevant
98th %ile
citation impact · 5th most-cited paper at JAR since publication
Journal of Accounting Research · 2017 Executive traits matter
CFO Narcissism and Financial Reporting Quality
with C. Ham, M. Lang, and N. Seybert
Question
Can executive psychology shape corporate reporting and firm behavior?
Takeaway
Manager personality helps explain economically meaningful differences in outcomes. Narcissistic CFOs — measured via experimentally validated signature size — produce more aggressive financial reports, have weaker internal controls, and are more likely to restate earnings. Featured in The Economist, FT, WSJ, NYT, HBR, and Washington Post.
98th Percentile Cited
Trillions Missing
from corporate balance sheets due to 1974-era accounting rules
Management Science · 2024 Missing intangible assets
Intangible Capital Measurement
with M. Ewens and R. Peters
Question
What happens when accounting omits trillions in internally generated assets?
Takeaway
Investors and researchers inherit a distorted map of firm value. We develop a structural model using acquisition prices to estimate missing intangible capital. Our parameters outperform BEA estimates, were discussed at NBER, and are applied at Morgan Stanley. Free data and code available below.
Public Data Resource
1.45%
announcement-window return from pre-earnings reversal strategy
Journal of Financial Economics · 2014 With Eric So (MIT)
Liquidity Provision Ahead of Earnings
with E. So
Question
Can market microstructure frictions create predictable price patterns around scheduled information events?
Takeaway
Market makers set prices below fundamental value before earnings to compensate for inventory risk, creating predictable reversals. A long-short strategy on pre-announcement returns yields 1.45% during the announcement window.
JFE
// complete record

All publications

2026
Firm-specific Information Processing and the Delayed Discovery of Macroeconomic News · with J. Pan, E. Sul
Rev. Acct. Studies↗ SSRN
2025
Do Sell-side Analysts React Too Pessimistically to Bad News for Minority-led Firms? · with K. Rupar, H. Yoon
J. Acct. & Econ.↗ SSRN
2024
Acquisition Prices and the Measurement of Intangible Capital · with M. Ewens, R. Peters
Management Science↗ SSRN
2022
Non-GAAP Reporting, Regulatory Focus, and GAAP Aggressiveness · with R. Guggenmos, K. Rennekamp, K. Rupar
J. Acct. Research↗ SSRN
2020
Asymmetric Timeliness and the Resolution of Investor Disagreement · with M. Barth, W. Landsman, V. Raval
The Acct. Review↗ SSRN
2019
Informational Environments and Analyst vs. Insider Information Content · solo-authored
Acct. Org. & Soc.↗ SSRN
2018
Know Thy Neighbor: Industry Clusters, Information Spillovers and Market Efficiency · with J. Engelberg, A. Ozoguz
JFQA↗ SSRN
2018
Narcissism is a Bad Sign: CEO Signature Size, Investment, and Performance · with C. Ham, N. Seybert
Rev. Acct. Studies↗ SSRN
2017
CFO Narcissism and Financial Reporting Quality · with C. Ham, M. Lang, N. Seybert
J. Acct. Research↗ SSRN
2014
News-driven Return Reversals: Liquidity Provision Ahead of Earnings · with E. So
J. Financial Econ.↗ SSRN
2014
The Prevention of Excess Managerial Risk Taking · with E. Van Wesep
J. Corp. Finance↗ SSRN
// pipeline

Working papers

Targeting JAE

Embargoed Disclosure

Solo-authored
How pharmaceutical companies use embargo clauses in clinical trial contracts to control the timing and terms of disclosure — with consequences for market price discovery and public health.
Working Paper

Analyst Forecast Bundling Intensity and Earnings Surprise

with Y. Zhang and O. Chen
Analysts signal private EPS information through bundling behavior. Adjusting for bundling reduces the "earnings kink" by 66%, suggesting much of what's attributed to earnings management reflects predictable analyst biases.
R&R at Review of Finance

Information from Implied Volatility Comovements and Insider Trades

with V. Zhu
Firms with higher implied volatility comovement have insider trades that reveal macroeconomic information — connecting option markets to information production by corporate insiders.
Accepted: RAS 2024 Conference

CFO Narcissism and the Power of Persuasion Over Analysts

with C. Ham and N. Seybert
Narcissistic CFOs use persuasive abilities to induce overly optimistic analyst valuations through public conference calls and private channels — helping explain why firms tolerate narcissistic executives.
// public goods

Intangible Capital Data & Code

Free parameters and capitalized intangible stocks from EPW (2024). Build more accurate balance sheets for any publicly traded firm. Used by researchers worldwide and applied in Morgan Stanley Investment Management research.

Code + Data → SDC-GVKEY Mapping → MD&A Text →
$ git clone intangible_capital
Cloning into 'intangible_capital'...
$ python construct_stocks.py
# EPW parameters: δ_k=0.15, δ_o=0.20
# Estimating knowledge + org capital...
# Adjusting balance sheets for 4,200 firms
# Output: adj_balance_sheet.csv
// writing

Notebook

Research notes, market commentary, and policy perspectives. Where academic rigor meets real-world application.

All
Market Signal
Research Notes
Policy
Market Signal
Why I'm Watching Biotech Volatility After the FDA's Latest Move
The FDA's accelerated approval pathway has implications that go beyond the obvious. Here's what the implied vol surface is telling us...
Mar 5, 2026
Research Notes
What the Embargo Paper Tells Us About Pharma Transparency
A preview of findings from my working paper on how pharmaceutical companies contractually suppress clinical trial disclosure...
Feb 22, 2026
Policy
Single-Trial FDA Approvals: A Response to Prasad & Makary
Prasad and Makary's NEJM proposal to lower approval standards would be less concerning if disclosure norms were stronger. Here's why...
Feb 10, 2026
// about

The path here

A chemist who became a financial economist — bringing a scientist's rigor to the messiest questions in capital markets.

EducationB.A. ChemistryDuke University
M.A. ChemistryU. South Florida · Highest Honors
M.B.A. FinanceNYU Stern · Highest Honors
2009Ph.D. AccountingCornell · Minors: Econometrics, Finance
2008–16Assistant ProfessorUNC Kenan-Flagler
2016–18Visiting Asst. ProfessorRice (Jones)
2018–presentAssistant ProfessorSMU Cox School of Business
↓ Download CV (PDF)

Before I studied markets, I studied molecules. My academic journey began in chemistry at Duke and the University of South Florida, where I learned to think in terms of systems, reactions, and evidence. That scientific training — the insistence on rigor, on letting data lead, on questioning assumptions — became the foundation for everything that followed.

The pivot from science to finance came at NYU Stern, where working in financial services gave me a front-row view of how information moves through markets — and how often it gets distorted along the way. That experience drove me to academia: I wanted to understand these distortions systematically, not just observe them anecdotally.

At Cornell, I found my intellectual home in information economics. My doctoral work, with minors in both econometrics and finance, gave me the methodological toolkit to study the deep structure of price discovery. Since then, my research has followed the information — wherever it gets produced, wherever it's corrupted, wherever it fails to reach the people who need it.

Today, my work spans from documenting racial bias in Wall Street analyst forecasts, to exposing how pharmaceutical companies contractually suppress clinical trial results, to measuring the trillions in intangible assets that modern accounting systems systematically omit. The through-line is always the same question: when information breaks, who pays?

// teaching

In the classroom

I teach accounting the way I research it — by asking why and who cares. The goal is lasting intuition, not memorized rules.

Equity Valuation
MBA · EMBA · MAcc
6.3
/ 7.0
Financial Acct.
MBA · MS Finance · MS Mgmt
6.3
/ 7.0
Applied Valuation
Masters of Accounting
4.8
/ 5.0
Corporate Finance
Masters of Accounting
4.8
/ 5.0
"Professor Wang is the best — I wish he taught more courses. His emphasis on learning the material rather than memorizing should be adopted by the rest of the SMU faculty."— Student evaluation, SMU Cox
"I can't sum it up in 2 to 3 things... he genuinely may be the best professor I have ever had the pleasure of learning from. Never has a professor been so effective in teaching both the materials and how to dive deeper into the context."— Student evaluation, SMU Cox
"Sean encouraged us to think like investors, which is exactly what I was hoping for. He also made the course challenging enough to stimulate creative thinking."— Student evaluation, SMU Cox
// contact

Let's connect

SMU Cox School of Business · 6212 Bishop Blvd, Crow 375 · Dallas, TX 75275

seanwang@smu.edu Google Scholar SSRN LinkedIn ↓ Download CV