Accounting and Econometrics: From Pawel Ciompa to Contemporary Research

This paper examines the little-known connection between econometrics and accounting invoked by Pawel Ciompa, who first introduced the term econometrics in 1910. Since then, research in accounting and in statistical (econometric) analysis has developed in parallel. It is argued that contemporary accounting research is methodologically closer to econometrics than ever before. This paper concentrates on the accounting origins of econometrics and on the econometric methodologies currently in use in accounting research, beginning with Pawel Ciompa's introduction of the term econometrics in accounting. The major contribution of this paper is a review of the occurrence of econometric methods in five leading journals in accounting research. The author identified 246 papers, and these were examined regarding the use of econometric methods. Two-thirds of the papers used methodologies that belong to econometrics-specifically, to financial microeconometrics. The most common methods were panel data models, qualitative variables models, and causality models.