Seunghan Nam
Suite 10-184 KMEC Bldg, NY, NY 10012
212-998-0036 (W)
646-552-5830 (C)
snam@stern.nyu.edu
EDUCATION
New York University, New York, NY
Ph.D. in Accounting
June 2005
M.Phil. in Accounting
June 2005
Dissertation: “The Impact of Non-audit Services on Capital Markets”
Dissertation Committee: Joshua Ronen (Chair), James Ohlson, Dan Gode, Alex Dontoh, William Greene
Abstract
The framers of the Sarbanes –Oxley Act (SOA) presume that non -audit services lower the quality of
financial statements, so they have prohibited auditors from offering most non-audit services. In
addition, regulators believe that non-audit services (NAS) may cause the auditor to be perceived as
“dependent” in appearance, thus increasing information risk, even if they have no impact on the
quality of financial statements.
I investigate two hypotheses using pre -SOA data. First, I ask whether the proportion of non -audit
services fees to total fees has a positive or negative association wit h the ability of financial
statements to predict a firm’s future cash flows, which can be considered a measure of the quality of
the statements. Second, I ask whether the proportion has a negative or positive association with the
cost of capital and the bid/ask spread, controlling for the predictive ability. The cost of capital and the
bid/ask spread serve as proxies of information risk.
Contrary to the proponents of prohibiting NAS, I find that the proportion of non -audit services fees to
total fees has a positive association with the predictive ability. If we control for the quality of
financial statements, non-audit services still have a negative association with the cost of capital and
the bid/ask spread as proxies for information risk. These findings suggest that there are benefits
from non-audit services, both to the quality of financial statements and to reducing information risk.
Stanford University, Stanford , CA
M.S. in Industrial Engineering
2000
Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea
B.Sc. Honors in Mechanical Engineering
1995
AWARDS

Doctoral Fellowship, New York University, NY
2001 – 2004

Fellowship, The Vincent C. Ross Institute, NY
2001 – 2004

Fellowship, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea
1991 – 1994
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
New York University, New York, NY
Lecturer – “Financial reporting and analysis (Intermediate Accounting)”
Developed syllabus and overall course structure, and administered all grades.
Teaching Assistant – to Professor James Ohlson in “Financial Statement
Analysis”
Collaborated on curriculum and exam development, met with students upon request,
and graded all written work, including final exam papers.
Teaching Assistant – to Professor Joshua Ronen in “Financial Statement
Analysis”
2003
2001-2003
2002
Collaborated on curriculum and exam development, met with students upon request,
and graded all written work, including final exam papers.
RELATED EXPERIENCE
New York University, New York, NY
Research Assistant – to Professor Eli Bartov
2002-2003
Extracted data from Compustat and CRSP, gathered the annual reports of
international firms, compiled reports on the German stock market, provided
support on a research paper, and extracted data on option under SFAS 123
manually from 10-Ks
Research Assistant – to Professor Baruch Lev
2001
Listened to and provided transcripts of conference calls
WORKING PAPER

“Information Transfer Effects of Senior Executives’ Migration and subsequent Write -offs”
With Joshua Ronen, New York University
Presented at the Accounting department workshop in the Stern School of Business, New York
University
Abstract
In this study, we consider whether the market conditions its reactions to the senior executives
(SE)’ move from origin company (OC) to the designation company (DC) on the SE’s past
performance and any other information impounded in the market reaction to the SE’s emigration
from the OC. We also examine whether the market perceives a benefit in the hiring of an SE
with an industry-specific background. We found that, with regard to migration events, the
performance of the OC – accounting and stock – before the SE’s migration is positively
associated with the market reaction to the immigration event only when the OC and the DC are
members of the same industry. With respect to OCs’ contiguously subsequent write -off and
restructuring events, we conjecture that subsequent large restructuring events signal hitherto
unrecognized shortcomings of the emigrating SE, whereas non -restructuring asset write-offs are
more likely to be a manifestation of neutral (with respect to inferences regarding the quality of
the emigrating SE) big baths taken by the OC’s incoming SE. We hypothesize and find that,
ceteris paribus, the market reaction to the DC’s stock at the time of the OC’s announcement of a
post-immigration write-off or restructuring is negatively associated with the OC’s pre -emigration
performance (which is predominantly positive in our sample), and possibly non -negatively
associated with an asset write-off (which is not a restructuring event). We also conjecture that
these effects are enhanced (become more negative) when the DC imports an SE from a
competitor.
WORK IN PROGRESS
1.
“Do Accruals contribute to the predictive ability of future cash flows?”
With Joshua Ronen and Francois Brochet, Stern School of Business, New York University
The draft of this paper is being written currently.
2.
“The Effectiveness of Insurance as a Signaling Device – Evidence from Insured Municipal Bonds”
The draft of this paper is being written currently. The proposal of the study has been
approved by Standard & Poors and the data have been provided.
MEMBERSHIPS

American Accounting Association
RESEARCH INTERESTS

Capital markets – cost of capital

Audit – Non-audit services

Management turnovers – migrations of manager

Write-offs

Quality of Financial statements – predictive ability of financial statements information.
REFERENCE
Joshua Ronen
James Ohlson
William Greene
Professor of Accounting
Professor of Accounting
Professor of Economics
Stern School of Business
W.P. Carey Chair in Accountancy
Stern School of Business
New York University
W.P. Carey School of Business
New York University
Arizona State University
313 Tisch Hall
40 West Fourth Street
New York, NY 10012
Phone (212) 998-4144
Email jronen@stern.nyu.edu
PO BOX 873606
Tempe, AZ 85287-3606
Phone: 480-965-3693
Fax: 480-965-8392
Email: James.Ohlson@asu.edu
44 West Fourth Street, 7-78
New York, NY 10012
Phone (212) 998-0876
Fax (212) 995-4218
Email: wgreene@stern.nyu.edu