Sara Toynbee
Assistant Professor
Department: Accounting
Research Areas: Accounting - Financial, Capital Markets, Financial Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis, Labor Markets, Voluntary Disclosure
Sara Toynbee is an assistant professor of accounting at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business. She teaches Financial Accounting Concepts and Research to students in the Integrated MPA program.
In her research pursuits, Toynbee explores financial reporting issues, including how institutional features of the Securities and Exchange Commission influence the effectiveness of its regulatory oversight, and topics related to challenges facing accounting standard setters and regulators in designing financial reporting guidance. Her research has been published in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Review of Accounting Studies, and Management Science. Her research has also been highlighted in various media outlets, including Bloomberg, Big Ideas, Columbia Law School’s Blue Sky Blog on Corporations and the Capital Markets, and the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance.
Her research titled “Conflicted Regulators” won the Connecting to Practice Award at the 2023 Financial Accounting Reporting Section Midyear Meeting. She has also received two outstanding reviewer awards for her service to top accounting journals.
Toynbee earned a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Washington in Seattle. She received a Bachelor of Commerce with First Class Honors (accounting) and a Bachelor of Arts (Spanish) from the University of Canterbury in her home country of New Zealand.
Dain Donelson, Matthew Kubic, and Sara Toynbee.
Apr/May 2024. The SEC’s September Spike: Regulatory Inconsistency within the Fiscal Year.
Journal of Accounting and Economics 77(2/3): 101636.
Sarah E. McVay, Edgar Rodriguez-Vazquez, and Sara Toynbee. May 2024. Experience with Non-GAAP Earnings and Investors’ Pricing of Exclusions. The Accounting Review 99(3): 397-427.
Matthew Kubic and Sara Toynbee. January 2023. Regulator Continuity and Decision-Making Quality: Evidence from SEC Comment Letters. The Accounting Review 98(1):365-398.
The Need to Validate Exogenous Shocks: Shareholder Derivative Litigation, Universal Demand Laws and Firm Behavior. By: Dain C. Donelson, Laura Kettell, John McInnis, Sara Toynbee. Journal of Accounting and Economics. Feb2022, Vol. 73 Issue 1, 101427
Darren Bernard, Weili Ge, Dawn Matsumoto, and Sara Toynbee. 2021. Implied Tradeoffs of Chief Financial Officer Accounting Expertise: Evidence from Firm-Manager Matching. Management Science 67(9), 5776-5799.
Asher Curtis, Sarah McVay, and Sara Toynbee. 2020. The Changing Implications of Research and Development Expenditures for Future Profitability. Review of Accounting Studies 25(2), 405-437.
Asher Curtis, Melissa Lewis-Western, and Sara Toynbee. 2015. Historical Cost Measurement and the Use of DuPont Analysis by Market Participants. Review of Accounting Studies 20(3), 1210-1245.