Name Responsible Activity "Accountancy & Finance" "Nadine LYBAERT" "Accounting, auditing and finance in private (family) firms" "Accountancy and Finance" "Kris Hardies" "In the research group Accountancy and Finance fundamental and applied research in the areas of ""Accountancy"", ""Financing"" and ""Insurance"" is been executed. Below is an overview of the various research topics that are discussed in the study. The field of accountancy: • Financial accounting: external reporting, international accounting, investor communication, imitation behaviour of companies, environmental reporting, narrative reporting, internet reporting, transition to IFRS and influence on reported financial position, quality of financial reporting; • Management accounting and control: short term cost assignment systems, long term cost behavior analysis, planning and control; • Audit: audit quality, auditor independence & expertise, public oversight, assurance services, assurance on sustainability & environmental reporting; • Management information systems: implementation of accounting information systems, evolutions in the field of XBRL, influence of implementation of ERP-systems; • Earnings management: profit control mechanisms, factors influencing profit control, IFRS earnings management vs. national accounting standards. The field of finance: • Financial management: evolution of the role of the CFO, financing policy of Belgian public companies, the use of financial techniques in capital budgeting, value-based management and creation of shareholders value, financial risk management; • Financial economics: the functioning of financial markets, stock and bond returns, optimal portfolio selection, investment evaluation, reversion of extreme price drops in financial markets, statistical modelling of stock prices, credit default swap evaluation; • Banking and insurance: profitability of banks, reporting assessment in the field of risk policy, the role of Belgian mixed banks; • Personal finance: personal wealth risk, comparison of the right of usufruct and the right of building. The field of accounting & finance: • Corporate governance, accounting and finance in business groups and MNO''s; • SME-management: the use of financial bootstrapping techniques, management accounting and control systems for SME''s; • Family businesses: financial management, succession in family firms • Tax-management: transfer pricing, fiscal rulings, international tax systems The field of insurance: • Stochastic models in financial and actuarial mathematics • Distributions of financial and actuarial quantities with stochastic interest rates: analytical calculations and approximation methods in the case of incomplete information • Dependent risks: dependence measures and copula modeling" "Accountancy, Auditing and Business Financing" "The main research domains of the department ACCO are: 1. In the field of accounting: creative accounting, income smoothing, income manipulation; 2. In the field of auditing: audit switching, audit of small companies; 3. In the field of business finance: project analysis." "Center for Regional Economics" "Center for Regional Economics" "Centre for Financial Analysis and Managment" "ESAS is a research centre conducting research into Financial Analysis and Financial Management" "Centre for Financial and Regional Economics" "Research topic: Research in regional and financial economics A variety of projects on short term base" "Finance and Insurance" "Steven Vanduffel" "The research unit of Finance and Insurance (FINS), headed by Steven Vanduffel, is conducting research in the areas of corporate finance, financial engineering, econometrics and insurance mathematics. Kris Boudt, Lieven De Moor and Steven Vanduffel are the full-time professors associated with FINS. The current research of Kris Boudt involves the development of econometric methods to estimate, forecast and optimize financial risk acknowledging the non-linear and non-normal features of the dynamic distribution of financial returns and integrate new data types (high-frequency data, text analysis, sustainability scores, macro-financial state variables). Historically, the research focus of Lieven De Moor has been on empirical asset pricing and international and macro finance, but recently it has further expanded to portfolio management, socially responsible investing, financial literacy, educational policy, and SME finance. Steven Vanduffel's recent research focuses on the analysis of model risk, the optimal design of derivatives, the modeling of stochastic dependence and risk management.  Over the last years the group has significantly expanded and increased its research output on all levels. The research unit regularly welcomes international visitors and has excellent research partnerships with the financial industry.Over the last years the group has significantly expanded and shows an increasing stream of strong research output appearing in top journals such as Journal of Banking and Finance, Review of Finance, Journal of Mathematical Economics and Journal of Risk and Insurance. We regularly welcome international visitors and have excellent research partnerships with the financial industry." "Financing, entrepreneurship and reporting" "The research activity is aimed at getting insight in a large database of financial statements of Belgian companies, by means of econometric methods as factor analysis, discriminant analysis, logit and probit and other multivariate techniques applied to financial statement information. Special attention is paid to SME's, credit policy of the firm as well as growth phenomena. In a first stage the program is rather descriptive and exploratory. In a later stage the activities are more oriented towards explanatory research whereby data are analysed in the light of modern financial theories and models. Something will be looked at in an international context. A list of other current research topics is the following: * initial public offerings (S. Vandemaele); * target costing and Interoranizational Cost Management (A. Limère); * Credit scoring (A. Limère); * Determinants of growth in Belgian Companies (A. Limère, E. Laveren, R. Mercken, K. Vanhoof); * Financial Structure of SME┌s (W. Voordeckers). Analysis and development of intelligent systems in business and finance. Regional economic development, computer auditing, business planning for SME's, SME cycle analysis, effectiveness of SME-consultancy, maintenance analysis for SME's, case-based reasoning, simulation for educational purposes." Governance "Wim VOORDECKERS" "Corporate governance in family firms" "Money and Finance Research Group" "The objective of the Research Group is to promote and strengthen the cooperation between academics of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel doing research in monetary and financial economics. This involves not only economists but also researchers in other disciplines such as psychology and law. The Research Group publishes its own paper series and organises seminars at which both members and invited speakers present their research."