The course material deals with advanced methodological issues primarily in the area of financial accounting. Topics are idiosyncratic to the faculty member who teaches the course. The emphasis is on careful reading and understanding of scientific accounting journal articles. In recent years, topics covered include earnings announcements and market microstructure, value relevance and cross-sectional analyses, variance decomposition analysis, earnings forecasts and analyst behaviour, accounting information and market efficiency, earnings management, and risk and accounting information.