Profile
Chris Higson has advised, or coached, senior management in over one hundred financial and industrial companies including leading international firms in banking, fund management, telecoms, IT and energy. He is a member of the oversight board of a UK investment company. He serves as an expert witness in accounting practice and regulation, performance measurement and taxation, and he comments on financial matters for television, radio and in the international press. He has been involved in creating several new businesses, including a media start-up, and a consultancy advising on the value of information assets.

  
  Chris has had several non-executive roles for the UK Government, as a member of the UK’s Industrial Development Advisory Board and of the Regional Growth Fund. He was on the first investment committees of the UK Green Investment Bank and of the British Business Bank. This work involved assessing the performance of some hundreds of UK businesses, ranging from technology start-ups to global multinationals. He developed a framework for measuring the social effects of government intervention that was the basis for analysing the UK Government’s industrial support.

 
  Chris does economic research in the broad area of asset management and recent papers include The Economic Impact of Business Property Relief on AIM-listed Companies; Operating Leverage and the Business Cycle; The Performance of the US buyout Industry; Aggregate and Firm Level Volatility. His main focus is writing for the practitioner audience. A number of papers discuss the financial performance of intangible assets, including Accounting for Brands; Valuing Information as an Asset; Accounting for Human Capital. Several papers, published in the FT and elsewhere, discussed the consequences of the financial crisis. Two influential papers, Valuing Internet Businesses and Did Enron’s Investors Fool Themselves? (2000 and 2001) predicted the end of the dot-com bubble and explained why dot-coms were overvalued at the time.

 
 

Publications
Chris has published over eighty academic papers and books. Here is a selection of papers that are available in pdf format:

"The economic impact of Business Property Relief on AIM-listed shares" Chris Higson, Myles Coleman, Janine L’Heureux, Liv Miller, 2021

"Supply Chain Finance, a note, 2021

"The Fundamental Performance of the UK’s Alternative Investment Market" Chris Higson with Afa Boran, 2021

"Two Lessons from the failure of Carillion" London Business School Review, 2018

"Aggregate and Firm Level Volatility: a Chimera?" with Luke Devonald, Sean Holly, University of Cambridge Working Paper, 2017

"Reporting Human Capital – Accounting for Human Resources" CIPD, London,2016

"Operating Leverage over the Business Cycle" with Arnab Bhattacharjee, Sean Holly,2015

"The Performance of Private Equity" with Rudiger Stucke,2012

"Valuing Information as an Asset" with Dave Waltho,2011

"Is there financial integration in the equity markets of the European Union" with Sean Holly and Ivan Petrella, Economics & Finance Research, 2013

"Macro Economic Instability and Business Exit: Determinants of Failures and Acquisitions of UK Quoted Firms" with A Bhattacharjee, S Holly and P Kattuman, Economica, 2009 Pdf

"Business Failure in UK & US Firms: Impact of Macroeconomic Instability and the Role of Legal Institutions" with A Bhattacharjee, S Holly and P Kattuman, Review of Law and Economics, 2008 Pdf

"The Privacy of Private Equity" London Business School Private Equity Institute, 2007

"Creative Financing", with M Deboo, O Rivers, Business Strategy Review, 2007

"Coping with IFRS", with M Sproul, London Business School/Company Reporting, 2005

"The Business Cycle, Macroeconomic Shocks and the Cross Section: The Growth of UK Quoted Companies", with S Holly, P Kattuman and S Platis, Economica, 2004

"The Cross Sectional Dynamics of the US Business Cycle: 1950-1999", with S Holly and P Kattuman, Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control, 26, 2002

"Market Metrics: What Should We Tell the Shareholders?" with T Ambler and P Barwise, Market Leader, 2001

"Did Enron's Investors Fool Themselves?" Business Strategy Review, 2001, Winter, Volume12

"Review of Lev on Intangibles", International Journal of Accounting, 2001

"Intangibles", Financial Times Mastering Investment, 2001

"Valuing Internet Businesses", with J Briginshaw, Business Strategy Review , 2000

"Value Metrics", Financial Times Mastering Management, 2000

"Inside Out: Reporting on Shareholder Value", with others, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, London, 1999

"The Use of CARR in the Assessment of Profitability by Competition Authorities", LBS Centre for Regulation Discussion paper, 1999

"Goodwill", British Accounting Review, 1998

"Post-Takeover Returns, the UK Evidence", with J Elliott, Journal of Empirical Finance, 1998

"Merger Mania", The City Magazine, March 1998

"The Incentive to Locate a Multinational Firm, the Effect of Proposed Tax Reform", with J Elliott, International Tax and Public Finance, 1994

"Effective Tax Rates on UK and Foreign Income - The Impact of the UK Budget Proposals", with J Elliott, British Tax Review, 1993

"Implications of surplus ACT for the location of financial services", with J Elliott, LBS/Corporation of London, 1993

"The Choice of Accounting Method in UK Mergers and Acquisitions", Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, London 1990

"Accounting for Brands", with P R Barwise, A Likierman and P R Marsh, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and London Business School, 1990

"Why has the Stock-Output Ratio Fallen?" with S Holly, Economic Outlook, 12(5), London Business School, 1988