Quotients of exact categories by cluster tilting subcategories as module categories

Abstract: We prove that some subquotient categories of exact categories are abelian. This generalizes a result by Koenig-Zhu in the case of (algebraic) triangulated categories. As a particular case, if an exact category B with enough projectives and injectives has a cluster tilting subcategory M, then B/M is abelian. More precisely, it is equivalent to the category of finitely presented modules over the stable category of M.