Held June 6 to 7, 2025, the McGill Accounting Research Conference (MARC) brought together accounting scholars, doctoral students and practitioners from across North America and beyond. Organized by Professor Wuyang Zhao at the McGill Desautels Faculty of Management, this year’s event focused on connecting different perspectives in capital markets, namely between those who benefit from share price increases via “long” positions and those who benefit from share price decreases via “short” positions.
A diverse group of six scholars presented research on topics such as shareholder activism, the role of social media, retail responses to negative tax news, banks’ loan loss forecasts, short sellers’ information acquisition, and narrative battles between short sellers and targeted firms.
An innovation for this conference was the inclusion of two distinguished practitioners with extensive experience in short selling. Their presence offered valuable real-world insights and encouraged productive dialogue with academic researchers.
Speakers included Professors Lorien Stice-Lawrence (University of Southern California), Christoph Schiller (Ohio State University), Preetika Joshi (McGill University), Sanjeev Bhojraj (Cornell University), Janja Brendel (Chinese University of Hong Kong), and Luc Paugam (HEC Paris). They were joined by former New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Matthew Rosenberg, and renowned short seller Soren Aandahl of Blue Orca Capital.
The event also included a Doctoral Consortium on Friday morning, designed to support early-career doctoral students. The consortium included a keynote address by Professor Partha Mohanram (University of Toronto), and research presentations by senior PhD students from McGill University, the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, University of Alberta, and the University British Columbia. About 30 attendees, mostly doctoral students across Canada, participated in this half-day consortium, which also provided valuable networking opportunities.
MARC 2025 welcomed over 80 participants from 40 universities across North America, Europe and Asia. The event was well received, earning an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 in a post-event survey, with participants expressing willingness to return to MARC in future years. One participant noted, “The presentations excellent and the overall organization was also outstanding—from meals to the thoughtful setup. The conference ended on a high note with the guided tour, which was also very well done. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at MARC from start to finish.”
The conference also earned Platinum Sustainable Event certification from the McGill Sustainable Events program, led by the McGill Office of Sustainability. MARC 2025 not only advanced research conversations in accounting and capital markets, it also reaffirmed the value of collaboration across academia and practice.
Accounting at McGill Desautels
The discipline of accounting at McGill is focused on the creation and dissemination of high quality research. Moreover, we offer a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses for students looking towards a professional accounting career as well as for students in other majors wishing to obtain a solid understanding in accounting.
