WANLI ZHAO

I joined Bocconi University as a Full Professor of Accounting in 2021. Prior to this, I was a financial economist at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, a professor of finance at the Hanqing Advanced Institute of Economics and Finance of the Renmin University of China in Beijing, and an associate professor of finance in the College of Business at the Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL. Before that, I was an assistant professor of finance at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in MA.

My publications appear in Journal of Finance, Journal of Accounting & Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, the Accounting Review, Management Science, Journal of Law & Economics, Journal of Financial & Quantitative Analysis, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Financial Management. I have been presenting my research in conferences and universities in the US, Europe, and Asia and my research has appeared in news media such as Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Yahoo!Finance, and SEC.gov. I was awarded “Outstanding Researcher of the Year” by the College of Business of SIU in 2015.

I am interested in corporate governance related topics in accounting and finance. Currently, my research focuses on managerial incentives, analyst forecasting, innovation, political economy, financial reporting, behavioral finance, as well as big data analysis.