The 2024 CAPANA Annual Research Conference was successfully held on June 12-13 at Hong Kong University, drawing over 200 attendees. The event commenced with an introduction by Pingyang Gao, CAPANA president, followed by a welcoming speech from Lin Chen, Associate Vice-President of HKU.

Renowned professors Valeri Nikolaev (University of Chicago) and Lakshmanan Shivakumar (London Business School) delivered inspiring keynote lectures on “The Emergence of Generative AI and Capital Markets: Challenges and Research Opportunities” and “Are Public or Private Firms’ Earnings More Relevant to Predict Future GDP?” respectively. Their talks set the tone for a stimulating conference that delved into cutting-edge research and discussions.

The conference featured nine research paper presentations, covering a wide range of contemporary accounting topics such as corporate AI and green technology investments, market response to visual emotions, ESG disclosure incentives, analysts’ use of machine translation technology, real-name verification in social media, and ESG development in China. These presentations spurred engaging discussions and offered fresh perspectives on the evolving landscape of accounting research.

The Best Paper Award was presented to Yakun Eric Wang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, for his insightful work on “User Anonymity and Information Quality of Social Media: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.” Haifeng You of Tsinghua University was recognized with the Best Discussant Award for his outstanding discussion of the paper “A Game of Disclosing ‘Other Events’: A Message to Retail Investors.”

Concluding the event, participants enjoyed a scenic hiking trip on the HKU campus and the Peak of Hong Kong led by Jeffrey Ng, providing an opportunity for informal networking and reflection on the conference’s highlights.

We are pleased to announce the annual CAPANA reception at the AAA meeting in Washington, DC. It will be held on August 12, from 7-9pm in the Marriott Marquis Hotel, in the George Washington University room on the M1 floor.

Looking ahead, we are excited to announce that the 2025 CAPANA conference will be co-organized by National Chengchi University and Singapore Management University. It will be held on July 8-9 in Taipei, Taiwan, featuring a keynote speech by Ed deHaan from Stanford University. We look forward to your continued support as we strive to advance high-quality academic research on China, the Asia Pacific region, and other emerging market economies. We welcome non-Chinese accounting researchers with similar interests to join CAPANA as members and participate in our research activities.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of this year’s conference. Your dedication and support are integral to CAPANA’s mission.