FINANCE THEORY GROUP

 

DESCRIPTION

The goal of the group is to foster theoretical research in the areas of corporate finance, financial institutions, and financial markets. We hold two meetings every year, where members and fellows meet to present and discuss their work. Members and fellows are researchers from leading institutions, who work primarily on the theory of corporate finance, financial institutions, and financial markets. 

The group was founded by Itay Goldstein and Gustavo Manso in the fall of 2009, when they organized the first meeting at MIT. Since then, the organization of meetings is rotated among members of the group, such that each meeting is organized by two-three different members. Participation is by invitation only.

Other activities of the group include: a summer school for Ph.D. students and faculty members; a best paper award for finance-theory papers on the academic job market.

Our By-Laws.

 

CURRENT BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Uday Rajan (president and treasurer), Philip Bond, Nicolae Garleanu, Zhiguo He, Ohad Kadan

 

PAST PRESIDENTS

Itay Goldstein (2011-2012),

Gustavo Manso (2012-2013)

Adriano Rampini (2013-2014)

Simon Gervais (2014-2015)

 

PAST BOARD MEMBERS

Itay Goldstein (2011-2014), Gustavo Manso (2011-2014), Uday Rajan (2011-2013), Adriano Rampini (2011-2014),  Ilya Strebulaev (2011-2013), Simon Gervais (2013-2015), Tomasz Piskorski (2013-2015)

 

SUMMER SCHOOL

1st Summer School on Financial Intermediation and Contracting: Washington University; Summer 2015

 

SPECIAL CONFERENCE

Open conference in Imperial College, London (June 27-29, 2016): Conference announcement

 

FUTURE MEETINGS

14th Meeting: Boston College; Spring 2016. Organizers: Andrey Malenko and Nadya Malenko

 

PAST MEETINGS

13th Meeting: UT Austin; Fall 2015. Organizers: Andres Almazan, Jonathan Cohn, and Richard Lowery

12th Meeting: Maryland; Spring 2015. Organizers: Nicolae Garleanu and Richmond Mathews

11th Meeting: UCLA; Fall 2014. Organizers: Daniel Andrei, Bruce Carlin, and Barney Hartman-Glaser

10th Meeting: Chicago; Spring 2014. Organizers: Zhiguo He and Konstantin Milbradt

9th Meeting: Columbia; Fall 2013. Organizers: Martin Oehmke and Tomasz Piskorski

8th Meeting: Berkeley; Spring 2013. Organizers: Willie Fuchs and Brett Green

7th Meeting: Duke; Fall 2012. Organizers: Simon Gervais and Dirk Hackbarth

6th Meeting: Harvard; Spring 2012. Organizers: Christine Parlour and Matt Rhodes Kropf

5th Meeting: Wharton; Fall 2011. Organizers: Vincent Glode and Itay Goldstein

4th meeting: Stanford; Spring 2011. Organizers: Marcus Opp and Ilya Strebulaev

3rd meeting: Boston University; Fall 2010. Organizers: Robert Marquez and Uday Rajan

2nd Meeting: NYU; Spring 2010. Organizers: Viral Acharya and Adriano Rampini

1st Meeting: MIT; Fall 2009. Organizers: Itay Goldstein and Gustavo Manso

 

 

BEST PAPER AWARD

Awarded to the best theory papers on the finance job market (based on a vote of members of the group):

 

2015 (financed by Nicolae Garleanu, Simon Gervais, Zhiguo He, Tomasz Piskorski, Uday Rajan):

First Prize: “Dynamic Adverse Selection: Time-Varying Market Conditions and Endogenous Entry” by Pavel Zryumov (Stanford, joining Wharton)

Runner Up: “Moral Hazard and the Optimality of Debt” Benjamin Hébert (Harvard, joining Stanford)

 

2014 (financed by Simon Gervais, Itay Goldstein, Gustavo Manso, Tomasz Piskorski, Adriano Rampini):

First Prize: “Intermediation and Voluntary Exposure to Counterparty Risk” by Maryam Farboodi (Chicago, joining Princeton)

Runner Up (Tie): “Auctions of Real Options” by Will Cong (Stanford, joining Chicago)  and “Information Acquisition vs. Liquidity in Financial Markets” by Victoria Vanasco (Berkeley, joining Stanford)

 

2013 (financed by Itay Goldstein, Gustavo Manso, Adriano Rampini, Uday Rajan, Ilya Strebulaev):

First Prize: “Contracting Timely Delivery with Hard to Verify Quality” by Felipe Varas (Stanford, joining Duke)

Runner Up: “Uncertainty Shocks and Balance Sheet Recessions” by Sebastian Di Tella (MIT, joining Stanford)

 

2012 (financed by Itay Goldstein, Gustavo Manso, Adriano Rampini, Uday Rajan, Ilya Strebulaev):

First Prize: “Optimality of Securitized Debt with Endogenous and Flexible Information Acquisition” by Ming Yang (Princeton, joining Duke)

Runner Up:Financial Intermediation, International Risk Sharing, and Reserve Currencies” by Matteo Maggiori (Berkeley, joining NYU)

 

2011 (financed by Viral Acharya, Itay Goldstein, Gustavo Manso, Robert Marquez, Marcus Opp, Adriano Rampini, Uday Rajan, Ilya Strebulaev):

First Prize: “Asymmetric Information in Financial Markets: Anything Goes” by Bradyn Breon-Drish (Berkeley, joining Stanford)

Runner Up: “Sticky Incentives and Dynamic Agency: Optimal Contracting with Perks and Shirking” by John Zhu (Berkeley, joining Wharton)

 

 

CURRENT MEMBERS

Hengjie Ai (Minnesota), Elias Albagli (Bank of Chile), Andres Almazan (Texas), Daniel Andrei (UCLA), Fernando Anjos (Texas), Vladimir Asriyan (CREi), Ulf Axelson (LSE), Ana Babus (Chicago Fed), Snehal Banerjee (Kellogg), Saki Bigio (Columbia), Philip Bond (U Wash), Matthieu Bouvard (McGill), Bradyn Breon-Drish (Stanford), Andrea Buffa (BU), Elena Carletti (Bocconi), Bruce Carlin (UCLA), Archishman Chakraborty (Yeshiva), Briana Chang (Wisconsin), Zhaohui Chen (Virginia), Ing-Haw Cheng (Dartmouth), Jonathan Cohn (Texas), Will Cong (Chicago), Brendan Daley (Duke), Amil Dasgupta (LSE), Shaun Davies (Colorado), Adolfo De Motta (McGill), Marco DiMaggio (Columbia), Sebastian Di Tella (Stanford), Jason Donaldson (Wash U), Alex Edmans (LBS), Maryam Farboodi (Princeton), Willie Fuchs (Berkeley), Diego Garcia (UNC), Nicolae Garleanu (Berkeley), Simon Gervais (Duke), Vincent Glode (Wharton), Eitan Goldman (Indiana), Itay Goldstein (Wharton), Alexander Gorbenko (LBS), Brett Green (Berkeley), Dirk Hackbarth (BU), Valentin Haddad (Princeton), Barney Hartman-Glaser (UCLA), Zhiguo He (Chicago), Benjamin Hébert (Stanford), Chong Huang (UC Irvine), Philipp Illeditsch (Wharton), Ohad Kadan (Wash U), Ron Kaniel (Rochester), Anastasia Kartasheva (BIS), Peter Kondor (CEU), Yrjo Koskinen (BU), John Kuong (INSEAD), Nisan Langberg (Houston), Jeongmin Lee (Wash U), Samuel Lee (NYU), Yaron Leitner (Philadelphia Fed), Doron Levit (Wharton), Dmitry Livdan (Berkeley), Richard Lowery (Texas), Evgeny Lyandres (BU), Matteo Maggiori (Harvard), Igor Makarov (LSE), Semyon Malamud (EPFL), Andrey Malenko (MIT), Nadya Malenko (BC), Gustavo Manso (Berkeley), Ivan Marinovic (Stanford), Robert Marquez (UC Davis), Rich Mathews (Maryland), Konstantin Milbradt (Kellogg), Alan Moreira (Yale), Erwan Morellec (EPFL), Martin Oehmke (Columbia), Christian Opp (Wharton), Marcus Opp (Berkeley), Dmitry Orlov (Rochester), Emiliano Pagnotta (Imperial), Stavros Panageas (Chicago), Cecilia Parlatore (NYU), Christine Parlour (Berkeley), Giorgia Piacentino (Wash U), Tomasz Piskorski (Columbia), Paul Povel (Houston), Uday Rajan (Michigan), Adriano Rampini (Duke), Matt Rhodes-Kropf (HBS), Marzena Rostek (Wisconsin), Jacob Sagi (UNC), Francesco Sangiorgi (Stockholm), Lukas Schmid (Duke), Alp Simsek (MIT), Raj Singh (Minnesota), Ilya Strebulaev (Stanford), Gunter Strobl (Frankfurt), Ajay Subramanyan (Georgia State), Martin Szydlowski (Minnesota), Alexei Tchistyi (UIUC), James Thompson (Waterloo), Victoria Vanasco (Stanford), Felipe Varas (Duke), Neng Wang (Columbia), Pierre-Olivier Weill (UCLA), Ed van Wesep (Colorado), Mark Westerfield (U Wash), Lucy White (HBS), Wei Xiong (Princeton), Liyan Yang (Toronto), Ming Yang (Duke), Vijay Yerramilli (Houston), Bilge Yilmaz (Wharton), Adam Zawadoski (BU), Haoxiang Zhu (MIT), John Zhu (Wharton), Pavel Zryumov (Wharton)

 

FELLOWS:

Anat Admati (Stanford), Franklin Allen (Wharton), Bruno Biais (Toulouse), Patrick Bolton (Columbia), Peter DeMarzo (Stanford), Douglas Diamond (Chicago), James Dow (LBS), Darrell Duffie (Stanford), Philip Dybvig (Wash U), Michael Fishman (Kellogg), Douglas Gale (NYU), Gary Gorton (Yale), Milton Harris (Chicago), Oliver Hart (Harvard), Bengt Holmstrom (MIT), Albert Pete Kyle (Maryland), Hayne Leland (Berkeley), Stewart Myers (MIT), Jean-Charles Rochet (Zurich), Stephen Ross (MIT), Jeremy Stein (Harvard), Anjan Thakor (Wash U), Jean Tirole (Toulouse), Vish Viswanathan (Duke), Andrew Winton (Minnesota), Joseph Zechner (Vienna), Jeffrey Zwiebel (Stanford).