Fatma Cebenoyan, Ph.D.

Office:  1526 Hunter West
Phone:  (212) 772-5393
Email:  fatma.cebenoyan@hunter.cuny.edu

---

Faculty

General Area of Research

Financial Accounting:  Value-relevance of accounting information; resolving uncertainty in forecasting; and firm performance and takeover probability

Description of Current Research

Value-relevance of Earnings:  On assessing the value-relevance of reported accounting information in general, and earnings in particular, I am in search of an economical proxy to identify firm's overall performance relative to their competitors. I adopt concepts and measure(s) from other fields such as economics and finance and apply these to accounting issues with modifications. One of such concepts is firm overall efficiency that not only measures firm's performance contemporaneously but also gives signals about its future potential given the firm's competition within its industry. To estimate this, I introduce a sophisticated technique called stochastic frontiers that can empirically measure firm success by focusing on its peers'; performance and evaluating firm specific factors. My specific goal is to develop a measure that is rooted in economic theory but can be empirically measured using accounting information.

Forecasting:  Information content of the reported earnings is also an important area in the forecasting field. There is evidence in accounting literature that accuracy in analysts' forecasts is very important, not only to the general public but to the analysts themselves. To improve accuracy, the analysts need, and use tools to resolve uncertainty about firms' future. The aim of this specific research area is to develop such a tool to help analysts identify the firms with more predictable earnings so they focus on right information to improve their accuracy.

Firm Performance and Takeover Probability:  Without exception, every industry has seen its share of mergers and acquisitions in recent years. Researchers started to investigate two specific issues in this area: what prompts an acquisition activity and if it achieves its purpose. My focus is on the determinants of a takeover activity and how a particular condition (e.g.firm's performance measured with cost/profit relative efficiency) affects the probability of a takeover.

Student

Essential and Describe Background Knowledge and Skills

Required skills vary depending on the project. Overall, however, what is listed below is good general background.

Essential:  Reliability, and (stubborn) patience in performing routine tasks

Desirable:  Statistics, and basic computer skills, desire in business/economics research interest

Expected Responsibilities

Perform library research:  Locate related articles; read and summarize them; prepare a basic literature review in specific areas. Expected commitment 5 hrs/week.

Data collection and analysis:  Collect data by hand from printed sources, set them up in programs such as Excel, to be used in models; tabulate the results of statistical analysis. Expected commitment is 10 hrs/week.

Expected Benefits

General:
Learn how to do basic research: Do library research for extant literature; formulate your own issue; collect data; run basic statistical analysis; and analyze the results.

Specific:
Develop an understanding of the field you are interested in: its requirements, level of commitment, etc. and discover your strengths and weaknesses in meeting them.

 Last updated: April 4, 2005

To contact us:

Gender Equity Project
509 Thomas Hunter Hall
Department of Psychology
Hunter College of the City University of New York
695 Park Avenue
New York, NY  10021

E-Mail: gender.equity@hunter.cuny.edu
Phone: 212-650-3001 Fax: 212-650-3247

©  2005 Gender Equity Project This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0123609 [ ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award ] and by Hunter College of the City University of New York. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This website was created and designed by Monica Hopenwasser and Jocelyn Tan with assistance from interns Shirley Wong, Tina Lau, Brock Fansler and Rommel Genciana.