Roman L. Weil studies financial literacy and corporate governance, an issue that arose from the accounting scandals. His preliminary work suggests, correctly it turns out, that the financial literacy that corporate board audit committee members have is surprisingly weak and that the gains in shareholder wealth accompanying improvement in such financial literacy are significant and large.
His approach to teaching emphasizes fundamental understanding of the few building blocks in accounting (asset, equity, liability, revenue, and expense) that will enable students to keep learning and understanding as the world of business transactions changes over time. "In 20 years, they'll have to understand new transactions, and the accounting for them, which haven't been conceived yet."
Weil is director of the Chicago/Stanford Law School Directors' Consortium, which he cofounded. Weil has also designed and implemented continuing education programs for partners at the accounting firms of Andersen and PriceWaterhouseCoopers as well as for employees at Goldman Sachs, Montgomery Wards, Merck, and William Blair and for business executives in Great Britain and Singapore.
Weil's practical experience adds a great deal to the classroom. Weil explains that theory makes the correct predictions, but students like to hear the actual outcomes, anecdotally. Weil points out that "the late, great Nobel laureate and GSB faculty member George Stigler taught us the plural of anecdote is data."
Weil has been a CPA in Illinois since 1973 and a CMA since 1974. The coauthor of more than 12 textbooks, Weil is the senior editor of, and contributor to, the Litigation Services Handbook, now in its fourth edition. He has published more than 100 articles in academic and professional journals and has served as the principal investigator on various research projects of the National Science Foundation. He has served as editor or associate editor of the Accounting Review, Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, Management Science, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, and the Financial Analysts Journal.
He has consulted to governmental agencies, including the U.S. Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In private industry, Weil has served as a consultant to Bethlehem Steel, British Petroleum, Chevron, Cisco Systems, Ford Motor Company, Genentech, General Dynamics, General Foods, IBM, McDonnell Douglas, Pepsico, Pillsbury, Polaroid, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and VISA USA. In addition, he serves on several boards.
Weil has served on the Securities and Exchange Commission Advisory Committee on Replacement Cost Accounting. At the Financial Accounting Standards Board, he has served on two task forces - one on consolidations and the other on interest methods - and on the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council.
He received a bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics from Yale University in 1962, master's degree in industrial administration in 1965, and a PhD in economics in 1966 from Carnegie Mellon University. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1965.
Weil is a member of the American Accounting Association, the American Economics Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the American Law and Economics Association, the Illinois Society of Certified Public Accountants, and the Institute of Management Sciences.
Outside of academia, Weil is a grandfather whose interests include sabermetrics, oenometrics, and oenonomy.
Selected Publications
Handbook of Cost Management, 2nd ed. (2006).
Financial Accounting, 12th ed. (2007).
Managerial Accounting, 10th ed. (2007).
Litigation Services Handbook, 4th ed. (2007).
