Cambridge Business Publishers

The combined skills and expertise of Easton, McAnally, Fairfield, Zhang, and Halsey create the ideal team to author the first new financial statement analysis and valuation textbook in years. Their collective experience in award winning teaching, consulting, and research in accounting, analysis, and valuation provides a powerful foundation for this innovative textbook.

Peter D. Easton is an expert in accounting and valuation and holds the Notre Dame Alumni Chair in Accountancy in the Mendoza College of Business. Professor Easton’s expertise is widely recognized by the academic research community and by the legal community.

Professor Easton is a Principal in Chicago Partners LLC, where he serves as a consultant on accounting and valuation issues. Professor Easton holds undergraduate degrees from the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia. He holds a graduate degree from the University of New England and a PhD in Business Administration (majoring in accounting and finance) from the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Easton’s research on corporate valuation has been published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and Journal of Business Finance and Accounting. Professor Easton has served as an associate editor for 11 leading accounting journals and he is currently an associate editor for the Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, and Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance. He is an editor of the Review of Accounting Studies.

Professor Easton has held appointments at the University of Chicago, the University of California at Berkeley, Ohio State University, Macquarie University, the Australian Graduate School of Management, the University of Melbourne, Tilburg University, National University of Singapore, Seoul National University, and Nyenrode University. He is the recipient of numerous awards for excellence in teaching and in research. Professor Easton regularly teaches accounting analysis and security valuation to MBAs. In addition, Professor Easton has taught managerial accounting at the graduate level.

Mary Lea McAnally is an associate professor and Mays Research Fellow at Texas A&M University. Professor McAnally teaches financial accounting and reporting in the MBA and Executive programs. Her casebook (coauthored with D. Eric Hirst and Ellen Engel), Cases in Financial Reporting is published by Cambridge Business Publishers. She has received several faculty-determined teaching awards including the Beazley Award and the Trammell/CBA Foundation Award. She has also received numerous student-initiated awards including the MBA Teaching Award at UT (1995, 2000, 2001, 2002), the MBA Association Distinguished Faculty Award at A&M (2003, 2004, and 2007) and the Class of 1997 Award for Outstanding and Memorable Faculty Member (2002). In 2006, the A&M Association of Former Students granted Professor McAnally the Distinguished Achievement Award.

Professor McAnally’s research interests include accounting and disclosure of stock options, and accounting for risk. She has published articles in the leading academic journals including Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Journal of Accounting Auditing and Finance. In 2005, Professor McAnally received the Mays Business School Research Achievement Award. She works closely with doctoral students and has served on numerous doctoral committees. She was the director of A&M’s doctoral program until 2007.

Professor McAnally is active in the American Accounting Association and its FARS section and has been involved with the New Faculty Consortium, the FASB conference, several doctoral consortia and the KPMG PhD project.

Professor McAnally holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Alberta and a PhD from Stanford University. She is a Chartered Accountant (Canada) and Certified Internal Auditor. Prior to arriving at A&M in 2002, Professor McAnally held positions at University of Texas at Austin, University of Calgary, University of Alberta, Canadian National Railways, and Dunwoody and Company Chartered Accountants.

Patricia M. Fairfield is an Associate Professor at The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Professor Fairfield teaches financial accounting and financial statement analysis in the undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs. She has a BA from Swarthmore College, and an MBA and PhD from Columbia University.

Professor Fairfield’s research focuses on financial statement analysis and the quality of earnings. Professor Fairfield has published in major professional accounting and investment journals, including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and the Journal of Financial Statement Analysis. She is recipient of a 1994 Graham and Dodd Award from Financial Analysts Journal.

Professor Fairfield has a long association with Morgan Stanley, where she has offered training courses and consulting services to new and experienced equity research analysts. She currently works as a consultant to a proprietary trading group on earnings quality issues. Professor Fairfield has also led workshops for members of audit committees in identifying red flags in financial statements.

Professor Fairfield was Academic Fellow at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and has served on the American Accounting Association Financial Accounting Standards Board Liaison Committee, the Academic Advisory Panel to Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc., and the editorial boards of The Accounting Review and Accounting Horizons.

Xiao-Jun Zhang is the E. R. Niemela Associate Professor of Accounting at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. He has served as Chair of the accounting group and the Director of the Center for Financial Reporting and Management at the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Zhang holds an undergraduate degree from Renmin University, and masters degrees from the University of Maryland and Columbia University. Professor Zhang received his PhD from Columbia University.

Professor Zhang’s research focuses on financial statement analysis and security valuation. His work has been published in highly respected research journals including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, and Review of Accounting Studies.

Professor Zhang has served on the editorial board of several journals, and has been a reviewer for many others top journals in the fields of finance and accounting. Professor Zhang teaches undergraduate, MBA, and PhD courses in accounting and analysis. He is consistently ranked among the best instructors by students at the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Zhang is a respected consultant having performed consulting services for several hedge funds. He has also served as an advisor to the Investment Club at the University of California, Berkeley.

Robert F. Halsey is an associate professor at Babson College. He received his MBA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin. Prior to obtaining his PhD he worked as the chief financial officer (CFO) of a privately held retailing and manufacturing company and as the vice president and manager of the commercial lending division of a large bank.

Professor Halsey teaches courses in financial and managerial accounting at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, including a popular course in financial statement analysis for second year MBA students. He has also taught numerous executive education courses for large multinational companies through Babson’s school of Executive Education as well as for a number of stock brokerage firms in the Boston area. He is regarded as an innovative teacher and has been recognized for outstanding teaching at both the University of Wisconsin and Babson College.

Professor Halsey co-authors Advanced Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis & Valuation, both published by Cambridge Business Publishers. Professor Halsey’s research interests are in the area of financial reporting, including firm valuation, financial statement analysis, and disclosure issues. He has publications in Advances in Quantitative Analysis of Finance and Accounting, The Journal of the American Taxation Association, Issues in Accounting Education, The Portable MBA in Finance and Accounting, the CPA Journal, AICPA Professor/Practitioner Case Development Program, and in other accounting and analysis journals. He has also developed exam preparation materials for the CFA examination and administers numerous CFA review courses in the Northeast.

Professor Halsey is an active member of the American Accounting Association and other accounting, analysis, and business organizations. He is widely recognized as an expert in the areas of financial reporting, financial analysis, and business valuation.