Rita Nevada Gunn

Biography

Professor Gunn is an Assistant Professor of Accounting at Vanderbilt. Her research interests include mergers and acquisitions, intangible assets and goodwill, and financial disclosure.

Her current research projects include:

• Examining the financial reporting of earn-out contracts in mergers and acquisitions and their impact on the earnings of the acquiring firm
• Analyzing the capital market response to the earnings of target firm released between the deal announcement and deal close
• Exploring whether voluntary changes in accounting policies allow for the recycling of earnings resulting in a degradation of earnings informativeness
• Using the purchase price allocations from mergers and acquisitions to examine whether asset mix explains the acquirer wealth differential from acquisitions of private and public target

Awards & Accomplishments

Rita was Valedictorian of her Accounting class at N.C. State.

Teaching

Professor Gunn’s teaching focuses on financial accounting. She teaches Financial Fundamentals for Non-Accountants, an executive education course. In addition, she teaches Financial Reporting I in the MBA, MAcc, and MsF program and the Essentials of Financial Reporting for the Undergraduate Business Minor.

Research Interests

Professor Gunn examines the impacts to financial reporting and capital markets of mergers and acquisitions.

Education

PhD, Accounting, Northwestern University

BS, Accounting, North Carolina State University

BA, Economics, North Carolina State University