Update on Fabricated Accounting Data

It's a conspiracy!

Three months ago I reported on a dataset that didn’t exist:

Fabricated Data Swept Under the Rug at Chicago Booth

A whistleblower has since escalated this issue to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business… and was summarily brushed aside without even being given a reason.

Pietro Veronesi is the Chicago Board of Trade Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Pietro Veronesi is covering this up. Why? Because the University of Chicago owns the Journal of Accounting Research (JAR), the journal where this fabricated data is published. Meaning JAR investigated themself… and then dismissed their investigation without any reason. Classic. Welcome to academia. Zero accountability.

If this were an innocent mistake, JAR would just retract the paper and admit the mistake. Because it's blatant fraud and fabricated data, so there's a huge elaborate cover-up involved. They're digging themselves in deeper, and they can't win. It's just a matter of facts, and the facts are not on their side. They are not bending, and that means they will eventually break.

The whistleblower also contacted Wiley. Wiley responded:

Obviously, Wiley is lying and obfuscating through their teeth in an attempt to stave off any accountability. This is not a satisfactory answer. The data doesn’t exist. So what if there is some other data? What experts using IRS data were consulted? What data sources were consulted to validate the findings??

The worst part is that they claim no evidence of INTENTIONAL misrepresentation, though there is. UNINTENTIONAL misrepresentation is ok?

Is Wiley a reputable publisher anymore? Seems the answer is a resounding no.

This is the same publisher that refuses to investigate Ryan Enos’ fabricated data. Wiley knows they have two clear-cut cases of fake/fabricated/non-existent data being published in their journals and in each instance they refuse to act. Thank you Wiley, very cool.

This is really bad - beyond embarrassing - and nobody is doing anything because nobody cares about accountants. Chicago Booth’s PR department sleeps soundly at night knowing NYT is never going to run an investigation into accounting professors. If their data mattered — if they faked cancer data, or something — this would be a HUGE scandal. But because they faked tax data, literally nobody cares. Their blatant research misconduct is met with shrugged shoulders. They survive by virtue of being too boring for anyone to care about them.

There is no excuse not to retract this paper and launch investigations into every paper these authors have ever touched. Perhaps that outcome may still come to pass.

I have it on good authority that an accounting professional is currently writing a formal paper that proves this data was fabricated.

Stay tuned.