Academy Fellow

Over my academic career I have published over 120 scholarly research pieces in the accounting field, including nearly eighty journal articles, ten books, and numerous book chapters, working papers and short monographs. My most recent books are Advances in Credit Risk Modelling and Corporate Bankruptcy Prediction published by the Cambridge University Press (UK), The Routledge Companion to Financial Accounting Theory (2015) and the third edition of Financial Accounting Theory published by Cengage Learning, Sydney. My research interests cover such topics as corporate financial reporting; credit risk and corporate bankruptcy modelling; corporate social responsibility reporting; accounting theory; standard setting, international standards harmonization, financial analysis and research methodology (with a particular interest in discrete choice modelling and stated preference experiments) . I have attracted numerous research grants from competitive grant schemes such as the ARC. I have been Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious international quarterly, Abacus since 2009. My industry experience includes financial statement analysis; corporate regulation; credit risk modelling and corporate performance analysis.

Recently my research has focused on two particular areas: (1) credit risk modelling and (2) CSR research. In terms of credit risk modelling, I have focused on a large-scale evaluation of various credit risk and bankruptcy models around the world, including the US, Europe and China. My research has utilized very large global samples for both public and private firms; and has concentrated attention on comparing the predictive performance and statistical properties of a wide range of credit risk and corporate prediction models. These modelling frameworks range from quite rigid, linear models such as legit, probit and linear discriminant models; partially nonlinear models such as multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) and generalized additive models (GAM); to very sophisticated machine learning approaches such as gradient boosting machines, random forests, deep neural networks and penalised support vector machines. My recent research has also evaluated the predictive power and performance of high dimensional models across several global datasets and explanatory variables, including macro-economic factors, financial ratios and other accounting-based measure, market prices variables (such as excess returns and market volatility) ; various corporate governance and executive compensation variables; valuation multiples, CSR variables, analyst forecasts and recommendations; industry variables and many other predictors . The main impact of my research to practice includes: (1) the development of more sophisticated and reliable early warning systems that can better predict distress events as far ahead of time as possible; (2) evaluating the global economic impacts of corporate failure; (3) raising awareness about the predictive and explanatory power of alternative statistical learning approaches and methods; (4) providing a better understanding of the role and behavioural influence of alternative predictor variables ; (4) facilitating the development of richer risk and bankruptcy datasets including more sophisticated software applications they can improve the responsiveness of credit risk and corporate banking models in practice.

The second aspect of my recent research has been corporate social responsibility reporting (CSR). My research has focused on several innovative CSR disclosure and performance metrics with a particular focus on studying the links between firm financial performance and CSR performance; the association between CSR and firm behaviour (such as tax avoidance); the relationship between CSR and cost of capital; carbon emission disclosures and the links between corporate performance and creating shared value in society.

Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia

Fellow of CPA Australia

1. Jones S, Johnstone D and Wilson R 2017 'Predicting Corporate Bankruptcy: An Evaluation of Alternative Statistical Models', Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, vol.44:1-2, pp. 3-34.
2. Jones S 2017 'Corporate Bankruptcy Prediction: A High Dimensional Analysis ', Review of Accounting Studies, 22:3, pp. 1366-422
3. Jones S, Johnstone D and Wilson R 2015 'An Empirical Evaluation of the Performance of Binary Classifiers in the Prediction of Credit Ratings Changes', Journal of Banking and Finance, 56, pp. 72-85
4. Jones S, Baker Mand Lay BF 2017 'The Relationship between CSR and Tax Avoidance: An International Pers pective', Australian Tax Forum, 32:1, pp. 95-127
5. Jones S and Frost G 2017 'Sustainability Information and the Cost of Capital: An Australian, United Kingdom and Hong Kong Listed Company Study', CPA Australia