Joseph Piotroski

Professor Piotroski is the Robert K. Jaedicke Professor of Accounting at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, a senior fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER), and a faculty affiliate at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions.  

Professor Piotroski’s research focuses on corporate transparency, governance, and regulation in a global context. His current research examines the impact of legal, political, and regulatory forces on capital market behavior and corporate decision-making, most notably in China and other emerging economies. He also explores how capital market participants use financial information for valuation and investment purposes. His research has been published in scholarly journals in the areas of accounting, finance, and economics, and his research on value investing has been frequently cited in the popular press and is widely used in practice. 

Professor Piotroski developed and teaches two popular MBA elective courses, "Accounting Based Valuation" and "Analysis and Valuation of Emerging Market Firms,” which focus on the critical use of accounting information for corporate decision-making, valuation, and investment purposes in the U.S. and emerging market contexts, respectively. Professor Piotroski also teaches sessions on value creation and managerial performance measurement to business leaders in India, East Africa, and West Africa as a part of Stanford’s Institution for Innovation in Developing Economies’ Transformation Programs. He was the faculty director of the Stanford Ignite program in Beijing, and has both developed and taught in numerous Executive Education programs focused on innovation for executives and entrepreneurs around the world.

Professor Piotroski earned his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1999, an MBA from Indiana University in 1994, a BS in Accounting from the University of Illinois in 1989, and worked as a tax consultant for Coopers and Lybrand in Chicago.  Before joining the faculty at Stanford in 2007, Professor Piotroski was an Associate Professor of Accounting at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (1999-2007).