Tag: PhD



PhD students from around the country were invited to the 10th annual Corporate Finance Conference to share their research in a special poster session to compete for the Best Finance PhD Dissertation Award in Honor of Professor Stuart I. Greenbaum.

Finalists gave a short presentation of their job-market paper with the aid of a poster to the conference participants on November 1, 2013.  The winner was selected by conference participants.

poster session winnerThe award honors Professor Stuart I. Greenbaum, former Dean and Bank of America Emeritus Professor, and the founding editor of the Journal of Financial Intermediation.

William Mann of the University of Pennsylvania was chosen for his paper on “Creditor Rights and Innovation: Evidence from Patent Collateral” and will be awarded $2,500 generously provided by Olin Business School and the WFA-CFAR.

Congratulations to William Mann and all of the finalists!

Learn more about the conference in this video.

Main photo: left to right: Stuart Greenbaum, William Mann, and Prof. Anjan Thakor




Sarah Grantham, Associate Director, Doctoral Adminstration and Student Affairs, contributed this news to the Olin Blog.

The Moog Scholarship recognizes the exceptional work of the Olin PhD Program by providing an endowment that helps support funding for our student stipends. Every year the PhD Program recognizes Olin Doctoral students who are displaying exceptional advancement and progress in their studies by naming them the Moog Scholars for the year.

2012-2013 Moog Scholars

Ryan Cooper
Ryan Cooper is a second year student in Economics. Ryan was an outstanding performer in his core classes, particularly in the microeconomics core and econometrics. This was especially impressive given that he was also completing his MBA at the same time. Ryan has impressed all the faculty who are working with him. He is quite unusual in that he is currently working across disciplines on a set of projects examining organizational structure, physician incentives, and patient costs. In addition, Ryan has collected a unique dataset on NFL player contracts negotiated by Player Agents over a 20 year period. The common theme across these projects is the use of cutting-edge tools on the econometrics of matching to tease out selection versus treatment effects. For example, Ryan’s dissertation will look at whether certain primary care physicians have lower patient costs because they are able to match with intrinsically low-cost patients (the selection effect) or do they engage in activities that contain costs (the treatment effect). Now that Ryan has acquired the dataset(s) he plans to use in his dissertation, his focus is on implementing new methods in the econometrics of matching. We expect he will be one of the top candidates when he goes on the market in a couple of years.

Tim Gubler
Tim is a third-year doctoral student in the Strategy program, and is progressing exceptionally toward what will be an excellent dissertation and ultimately a successful academic career. His comprehensive examination at the end of his second year was universally received with great enthusiasm by the faculty, which was consistent with his top-level work in each of the doctoral seminars. In addition his coursework in econometrics, both in the economics department and in Tat Chan’s class, has been extremely good.

In addition, Tim has been actively engaged in research for the last three semesters. Tim has served as a research assistant on several projects, and has coauthored a chapter with Jackson Nickerson. Furthermore, Tim has helped spearhead a research project with Prof. Pierce that examines how firm policies impact the productivity and behavior of workers in local industrial laundry factories. This work has already produced a coauthored paper, which will be submitted in the next two weeks to Management Science.

Finally, Tim is a wonderful colleague and community member, and contributes to classes, seminars, and the academic environment. He is kind, respectful, and always willing to help others.

Daisung Jang
Daisung Jang is a model student in Organizational Behavior. He began with a strong psychology background from his undergraduate degree as well as Master’s degree and two-year research apprenticeship during which he developed research experience that will most likely lead to publications. Since joining us, he has started many promising collaborations. Faculty members working with him report that he is widely read across fields and brings ideas from this broad perspective across psychology, sociology, management, and organizational behavior. They report that he takes ideas and runs with them, just as he takes research plans and runs with them. He is hard-working, thorough, careful, and he always comes with possible solutions while articulating the problems. This level of self-sufficiency bodes well for his future as an independent researcher. Daisung’s performance in coursework has been stellar. He always agrees to any suggestion of performing service, notably serving as a conference reviewer four times, spending time helping new doctoral students adjust, and assisting with events for recruiting and mentoring new students.

Fang Liu
Fang is a 4th year student in Finance. She has aced her coursework receiving an A+ or an A in all her courses. She has also successfully completed her qualifying exams and first and second year paper milestones. Fang’s research focuses on different aspects of risk and risk-taking. She already has three completed working papers joint with faculty. Her paper “Performance Evaluation with High-Moments and Disaster Risk” is now in 2nd at the Journal of Financial Economic (a top-tier finance journal). Her other two working papers are getting ready for submission to quality journals. Fang is now working on her job-market paper which will focus on the choice of the manager between systematic and idiosyncratic risk. Fang has also done well on her teaching assignments and has been an excellent citizen in the PhD program.

Mingcheng (Mike) Wei
Mike Wei is a fourth year student in Operations Management and Manufacturing. Mike has been working with OMM faculty on a couple of research projects on the topic of dynamic pricing under strategic consumer behavior. In the first paper, in which he collaborates with Prof. Yossi Aviv and Prof. Fuqiang Zhang, he explores how a firm’s level of forecasting sophistication influences–positively or negatively–their level of profitability when customers are forward-looking in their purchasing decisions. In the second research project, Mike and Prof. Aviv study the effectiveness of innovative dynamic-pricing schemes in counteracting the adverse impact strategic consumer behavior.

Mike is a truly exceptional doctoral student. Not only did Mike do very well in his courses, he is also highly skilled in pure methodologies. He is a very creative and an extremely hard-working person. Mike has contributed to research by extensively studying the relevant literature, conducting a very competent level of theoretical analyses, and thoughtfully participating in the execution of numerical analyses. Additionally, we are truly impressed by his level of perseverance along the aforementioned tedious and challenging research processes.

Mike is a very energized and positive person, which makes it a great pleasure to work with him. Mike always volunteers for different tasks, whether they are research or course-related. Mike is a TA for a couple of different courses, and often receives great feedback from students about his communication, expertise, and kindness.

Congratulations to all!