Omri Even-Tov 
Assistant Professor | Distinguished Teaching Fellow | Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES
Areas of Expertise (6)
Accounting and Financial Disclosures
Economic Consequences of Regulatory Changes
Corporate Debt
Capital Markets
Mergers and Acquisitions
The Information Content of Credit Rating Changes
About
Omri Even-Tov is an Assistant Professor in the Accounting Group. His research focuses on reporting and disclosure policies, capital markets, corporate debt, mergers and acquisitions, and credit rating agencies. His work examines the economic consequences of different disclosure policies in different settings. He has current research projects on the real effects of conflict mineral disclosures, the effect of disclosures of new public companies on retail investors, and the economic consequences of pension disclosures of municipalities.
Even-Tov has also been recognized for his significant accomplishments as an educator. In his second year as an Assistant Professor, he was honored with Berkeley Haas’ Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching for his MBA financial accounting course. He won the same award the following year for his teaching in the PhD program. In 2018, he was included on Poets & Quants’ list of the “World’s Best 40 Business School Professors Under 40.”
In collaboration with Prof. Jennifer Chatman, Even-Tov developed a new Extreme Leadership course in 2017 where students test their leadership skills on treks to the Andes and Patagonia. Even-Tov has also developed a number of television game show formats with his brother. Their formats have aired in multiple countries, including Brazil, the U.K., and Turkey.
Education (3)
Anderson School of Management, UCLA: PhD, Accounting
Tel Aviv University: BSc, Economics
Tel Aviv University: BA, Accounting
Links (2)
Honors & Awards (3)
Poets & Quants' 2018 Best 40 Under 40 Professors
April 2018
Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, PhD Program
2017 – 2018
Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, MBA Program
2016 – 2017
Selected External Service & Affiliations (1)
- Ad-hoc reviewer: Management Science, Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance, American Accounting Association annual meeting, Journal of International Review of Financial Analysis, International Journal of Financial Studies, EAA 2020 Annual Conference
Positions Held (1)
At Haas since 2015
2015 – present, Assistant Professor, Haas Accounting Group
Media Appearances (10)
A Decade After Relaxing IPO Rules, the GOP Wants to Loosen Again. Some Academics Offer a Warning.
Barron's online
2022-04-22
The JOBS Act of 2012 relaxed rules for small stock offerings, but did it really revive IPOs? According to Associate Professor Panos Patatoukas, the L.H. Penney Chair in Accounting, the “myopic focus on quantity without thinking about quality had bad consequences for the savings of everyday investors.” Patatoukas and co-authors Assistant Professor and Distinguished Teaching Fellow Omri Even-Tov and PhD candidate Young Yoon found that JOBS Act stocks underperformed those bound by the old rules—and the market overall.
Loosening the Rules for Small Stock Offerings Hurt Investors: Study
Barron's online
2022-04-21
The 2012 JOBS Act relaxed initial public offering requirements for companies with revenues under $1 billion, and a growing number of them have taken advantage of the option to disclose less financial information in their IPOs. The reduced-disclosure provision may have helped stimulate the market, but it came at the cost of lower IPO quality and more risk exposure for individual investors, according to research by Assistant Professor and Distinguished Teaching Fellow Omri Even-Tov, and Associate Professor, Distinguished Teaching Fellow Panos Patatoukas, the L.H. Penney Chair in Accounting, and PhD candidate Young Yoon.
SPAC Startups Made Lofty Promises. They Aren’t Working Out.
The Wall Street Journal online
2022-02-25
Nearly half of all startups with less than $10 million of annual revenue that went public last year through a special-purpose acquisition company, known as SPAC, have failed or are expected to fail to meet the 2021 revenue or earnings targets they provided to investors, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Research co-authored by Assistant Professor Omri Even-Tov looked at SPACs from 2010 through 2020 and concluded that high-growth revenue projections are likely to be “overly optimistic and misleading to uninformed investors.”
Should SPAC Forecasts be Sacked?
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance online
2021-10-31
SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, allow young speculative companies to go public based on projected future revenue, rather than disclosing past financial statements required for a traditional IPO. SPAC issuers have been criticized for taking advantage of this "Safe Harbor" loophole to inflate their revenue projections in order to attract investors. A new paper co-authored by Asst. Prof. Omri Even-Tov, provides the first large-scale evidence that SPAC revenue forecasts are indeed overly optimistic, and that those with the highest projected growth are the most biased. These aggressive revenue projections entice retail investors, who end up faring worse on their investments. Even-Tov found that firms with higher projections tend to underperform comparable firms during the two-year span following the SPAC merger.
Insiders are good at trading
Bloomberg online
2021-10-02
SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, which allow young speculative companies to go public based on projected future revenue, rather than disclosing past financial statements required for a traditional IPO. SPAC issuers have been criticized for taking advantage of this "Safe Harbor" loophole to inflate their revenue projections in order to attract investors. A new paper co-authored by Asst. Prof. Omri Even-Tov, provides the first large-scale evidence that SPAC revenue forecasts are indeed overly optimistic, and that those with the highest projected growth are the most biased. These aggressive revenue projections entice retail investors, who end up faring worse on their investments. Even-Tov found that firms with higher projections tend to underperform comparable firms during the two-year span following the SPAC merger.
The Real Effects of Conflict Minerals Disclosures
Columbia Law School - Blue Sky Blog online
2021-09-22
Discussing recent co-authored research, Asst. Prof Omri Even-Tov writes that transparency can nudge companies to change their sourcing of “conflict minerals” — natural resources known to fuel conflicts in underdeveloped countries. That transparency can alleviate the unintended consequences of irresponsible sourcing.
The Jobs Act Did Not Raise IPO Underpricing
Columbia Law School - Blue Sky Blog online
2021-09-17
While the goal of the JOBS Act was to ease access to capital, studies have found evidence of an increase in IPO underpricing and higher cost of equity capital for EGC issuers, writes Assist. Prof and Distinguished Teaching Fellow Omri Even-Tov, who co-wrote new research with Assoc. Prof. Panos Patatoukas. The research found “changes in overall IPO market conditions explain the apparent increase in IPO underpricing,” he said. “While we find evidence that institutional investors use publicly available information to avoid the worst-performing IPO stocks, individual investors tend to ignore firm fundamentals when investing in IPO stocks.”
Tampa Lead Factory Gets Credit Downgrade
PBS Frontline online
2021-06-29
Global credit-rating agency Moody’s downgraded lead smelter Gopher Resource after the Tampa Bay Times revealed that Gopher had exposed hundreds of workers to extreme amounts of lead. “That’s a significant impact on the company moving forward,” said Asst. Prof Omri Even-Tov of the Haas Accounting Group.
Dealbook Newsletter
The New York Times online
2021-01-22
A roundup of new research includes a paper co-authored by Asst. Prof. Omri Even-Tov, which found compelling evidence that some credit analysts leak news of ratings changes to institutional investors, perhaps in the hope of getting a job in the future.
Covid-19 Pandemic Puts Squeeze on Pension Plans
The Wall Street Journal online
2020-12-09
A study by Omri Even-Tov of UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and two colleagues, found that counties reduced spending on welfare and payroll and cut employee numbers after accounting standards required them to disclose their pension liabilities.
Working Papers (4)
The Economic Consequences of GASB Financial Statement Disclosure
Omri Even-Tov, Michael Dambra, and James P. Naughton (2020)
Call Me by Your Name: The Effect of Analyst-CEO First Name Commonality on Analyst Forecast Accuracy
Omri Even-Tov, Kevin Huang, and Brett Trueman (2020)
What Drives Acquisition Premiums and Why do Targets Reject Offers? – Evidence from Failed Acquisition Offers
Omri Even-Tov, David Aboody, and Jieyin Zeng (2019)
How Do Representations and Warranties Matter? Risk Allocation in Acquisition Agreements
Omri Even-Tov, James Ryans, and Steven Davidoff Solomon (2020)
Selected Papers & Publications (4)
From Implicit to Explicit: The Impact of Disclosure Requirements on Hidden Transaction Costs
Journal of Accounting ResearchChristine Cuny, Omri Even-Tov, Edward M. Watts
October 2020
What Moves Stock Prices Ahead of Credit Rating Changes?
Review of Accounting Studies (forthcoming)Omri Even-Tov and N. Bugra Ozel
2020
Overnight Returns As a Measure of Firm-Specific Investor Sentiment
Journal of Financial and Quantitative AnalysisDavid Aboody, Omri Even-Tov, Reuven Lehavy, and Brett Trueman
2018
When Does the Bond Price Reaction to Earnings Announcements Predict Future Stock Returns?
Journal of Accounting and EconomicsOmri Even-Tov
2017
Teaching (3)
Financial Accounting
Core MBA Class
Empirical Capital Market Research
PhD program
Extreme Leadership
Elective MBA/EWMBA Class
Social