GW School of Business site logo

School of Business

 

Ph.D. in Finance: Research and Productivity

The Department

The Finance Department consists of distinguished faculty who are at the forefront of both theoretical and empirical research on topics of asset pricing, corporate finance, credit risk, international finance, real estate, credit risk, fixed income and corporate governance. The publications of the faculty appeared in premier journals such as Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Monetary Economics, Management Science, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of International Economics. The faculty also obtained grants such as Q Group, FDIC Center for Financial Research and INQUIRE-Europe. The research of the faculty had attention from the press such as Financial Times, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

The Finance department has an active research seminar series, both as the department and also joint with the Federal Reserve Board, where distinguished faculty from other universities and institutions present their new research. Current and past speakers are listed in the Finance Seminar Series web site.

The Faculty

Our core faculty and a sample of their recent publications are listed below.

Şenay Ağca, Ph.D.

Alma Mater: Virginia Tech. Areas of expertise: Corporate finance, international finance, credit risk.

  • Ağca, Ş., G. De Nicolo and E. Detragiache “Banking Sector Reforms and Corporate Leverage in Emerging Markets” Emerging Markets Review, 2013, .
  • Ağca, Ş. and O. Celasun “Sovereign Debt and Corporate Borrowing Costs in Emerging Markets” Journal of International Economics, 2012, 88, 198-208. (Nominated for the Best Paper Award, 2012 FMA Conference and 2011 European FMA Conference).

Alexandre Baptista, Ph.D.

Alma Mater: University of Minnesota. Areas of expertise: Finance theory.

  • Baptista , Alexandre, Alexander J. Gordon, and Shu Yan. A Comparison of the Original and Revised Basel Market Risk Frameworks for Regulating Bank Capital. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2013.
  • Baptista, Alexandre, and Alexander J. Gordon. “Portfolio Selection with Mental Accounts and Delegation.” Journal of Banking and Finance, 2011: 35, 2637.2656.

Brian Henderson, Ph.D.

Alma Mater: University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Areas of Expertise: Investments, Fixed Income, Derivatives, Corporate Finance.

  • Henderson, Brian, and Neil D. Pearson. “The Dark Side of Financial Innovation: A case study of the pricing of a retail financial product.” Journal of Financial Economics, 2011.
  • Henderson, Brian, Darwin Choi, Mila Getmansky, and Heather Tookes. “Convertible Bond Arbitrageurs as Suppliers of Capital.” Review of Financial Studies, 2010.

Min Hwang, Ph.D.

Alma Mater: University of California at Berkeley. Areas of expertise: Real Estate

  • Hwang, Min and Quigley, John. Housing Price Dynamics in Time and Space: Market Liquidity and Investment Returns. Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 41(3), 2010.

Gergana Jostova, Ph.D.

Alma Mater: Boston College. Areas of expertise: Credit Risk, Financial Anomalies

  • “Momentum in Corporate Bond Raeturns” (w/ Stanislava Nikolova, Alexander Philipov, and Christof Stahel) Review of Financial Studies, 2013, Vol. 26 (7), pp. 1649-1693.
  • “Anomalies and Financial Distress” (w/ Doron Avramov, Tarun Chordia, and Alexander Philipov) Journal of Financial Economics, 2013, Vol. 108 (1), pp. 139-159.

Robert Savickas, Ph.D.

Alma Mater: University of Georgia, Areas of expertise: Asset Pricing, Mortgage Finance, Credit Risk

  • Hui Guo, Robert Savickas, Zijun Wang, Jian Yang, “Is Value Premium a Proxy for Time Varying Investment Opportunities? Some Time Series Evidence,” 2009, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 44, pp. 133154.
  • Hui Guo and Robert Savickas, “Average Idiosyncratic Volatility in G7 Countries,” 2008, Review of Financial Studies 21, pp. 12591296.

Robert Van Order, Ph.D.

Alma Mater: John Hopkins University. Areas of expertise: Real Estate.

  • “Securitization, Risk-taking and the Option to Change Strategy,” with Rose Neng Lai, Real Estate Economics, 2013
  • “Deconstructing the Subprime Debacle Using New Indices of Underwriting Quality and Economic Conditions: A First Look.” with Charles Anderson, and Dennis R. Capozza, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, June 2011.