Valeri Nikolaev studies the role of financial reporting and information in capital markets and financial contracting. His current research focuses on the transformative effects of emerging technologies, notably Generative AI and Large Language Models, on information processing and market efficiency. Nikolaev’s primary interests revolve around the potential of AI tools to assist investors in making well-informed decisions, thereby fostering more efficient and equitable capital markets. His latest scholarly contributions shed light on unstructured narrative data and emphasize the significance of context when deciphering numerical information.
His broader interests include understanding the demand for information, the role of transparency, measuring the quality of accounting information, measuring firms’ fundamentals, and accounting manipulations. His dissertation “Debt Covenants and Accounting Conservatism” was published in the Journal of Accounting Research. His other papers include “Capital versus Performance Covenants in Debt Contracts” with Hans Christensen, published in the Journal of Accounting Research; “Deflating Profitability” with Ray Ball, Joseph Gerakos, and Juhani Linnainmaa published in the Journal of Financial Economics; “Does Fair Value Accounting for Non-Financial Assets Pass the Market Test?” with Hans Christensen published in the Review of Accounting Studies; “On earnings and cash flows as predictors of future cash flows” with Ray Ball published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics..
Nikolaev currently serves as one of the Senior Editors of the Journal of Accounting Research. Previously, he served as an Associate Editor at Management Science, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, and the Journal of Accounting Research.
Born in Belarus, Nikolaev lived and studied in the Netherlands and Czech Republic before joining the University of Chicago. He earned his PhD in accounting cum laude in 2007 from the Center for Economic Research at Tilburg University in The Netherlands. He earned his master’s degree in economics in 2002 from the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education at Charles University in Prague. His bachelor’s degree in economics with distinction was earned in 1999 from the Minsk’s Institute of Management in Belarus.