2026 Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets:  Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), in conjunction with Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR), is pleased to announce the 2026 Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets. This year’s conference will be held in person in Washington, D.C. on September 10-11, 2026. Attendance is free and open to academics, Ph.D. students, and financial regulators.  

The conference aims to:

• Foster rigorous economic research on audit-related topics, including the economic impact of auditing, audit regulation, and audit oversight on capital markets.
• Inform the academic community about PCAOB activities and developments.
• Obtain input from the academic community on topics of interest to the PCAOB.

Paper Submission and Selection

The conference organizers invite researchers to submit working papers regarding all aspects of auditing issuers and brokers and dealers as well as the impact of audit regulation and audit oversight. Papers employing any research methodology will be considered, provided the approach is rigorous and well-suited to the paper’s research question.

All submitted papers will go through a blind review process by a program committee of PCAOB Office of Economic and Risk Analysis staff, CAR editors, and other academic experts to determine which researchers will be invited to present their papers at the conference.

Papers to be considered for this conference should be emailed to [email protected] by May 15, 2026. Please send a PDF version of your working paper, with a separate file for the title page from the paper to facilitate a blind review and specify "PCAOB Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets" in your email subject line.

Evaluation of Papers for CAR Submission

Several CAR editors will attend the conference and, shortly following the conference, will invite those authors whose projects appear particularly promising to submit that research to CAR for review and consideration for publication. The CAR editors will provide the authors of invited papers with comments for revision with the goal of expediting the review process. Invited papers should follow CAR’s editorial policy and be submitted via CAR’s electronic office.

Timeline

May 15, 2026: Submission of working papers for consideration for presentation at the conference. 

July 31, 2026: Authors will be notified whether their paper is selected for presentation at the conference.

September 10-11, 2026: Presentation of selected papers at the conference.

October 4, 2026: Authors of a subset of papers selected by CAR editors will be invited to submit their papers to CAR for review and consideration for publication. 

Conference Attendance

The conference will be held in-person in Washington, D.C. Attendance is free. Academics, Ph.D. students, and financial regulators interested in attending should contact the conference organizers at [email protected].

Continuing Professional Education Credit

We anticipate that this event will qualify for CPE credit. We will share additional details on CPE closer to the date of the conference.