Finance Profs Continue Collaboration

Photo by Saul Bromberger/Sandra Hoover

FINANCE PROFESSORS Darrell Duffie and Kenneth Singleton received the 1997 Smith Breeden Distinguished Paper Award from the Journal of Finance for their paper "An Econometric Model of the Term Structure of Interest-Rate Swap Yields." Duffie and Singleton, who is the C.O.G. Miller Distinguished Professor of Finance, have collaborated on a number of successful ventures, including two new executive education programs, during the past few years. In 1997 they developed the executive program "Market and Credit Risk for Financial Institutions," which they are offering again in February 1999. Next month in London they will codirect their new five-day executive program in "Credit Risk Modeling for Financial Institutions." The program runs from October 25 to 29.
       Duffie and Singleton's work has brought them considerable attention from the financial services industry. In March they spoke to the International Swaps and Derivatives Dealers Association, an industry group, on new developments in derivatives, such as credit derivatives. Also this year, they agreed to participate in a new think tank, the C&L Risk Institute, organized by the accountancy firm Coopers & Lybrand and dedicated to the analysis and management of financial risk.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR of Strategic Management Thomas Hellmann was one of 12 young scholars named a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution for the 1998-99 academic year. Awarded by the institution, the fellowships give promising younger academics a year free of other obligations in order to complete a research project on a public policy issue. Hellmann plans to continue his study "Financing Innovation and Growth."

THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE Dame awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree to William Beaver, the Joan E. Horngren Professor of Accounting, in May. The university conferred the degree on him as "a Notre Dame alumnus who has been called the foremost financial accounting researcher in the world. Beaver's body of work in securities price research has made him the only person to receive every honor bestowed by the American Accounting Association," stated the commendation, which also pointed out that Beaver is a member of the Accounting Hall of Fame. "He is admired by both academicians and practitioners as a leader of the accounting profession's efforts to maintain the integrity of the financial reporting process," it said. Beaver has remained close to Notre Dame, from which he graduated in 1962. In February he spoke on "Financial Reporting: An Accounting Revolution Twenty Years Later" as part of the university's O'Brien-Smith Visiting Scholars Program.
       Beaver added to his list of honors this spring when he and Associate Professor of Accounting Maureen McNichols won the Best Paper award at the Review of Accounting Studies conference for "The Characteristics and Valuation of Loss Reserves of Property Casualty Insurers." In the paper, which will be published in a future issue of the journal, Beaver and McNichols found that the revisions in an insurance company's policy loss reserves follow a predictable pattern that permits the capital market to adjust for and anticipate a portion of the revisions that will be reported in the future.

FOURTEEN FACULTY MEMBERS have been named faculty fellows or scholars for the 1998-99 academic year. The fellowships provide the recipients with additional support for their research and course development. James Baron, the Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources, received the Bob and Marilyn Jaedicke Fellowship, which honors the former dean. Mohan Venkatachalam, assistant professor of accounting, and Stefanos Zenios, assistant professor of operations, information, and technology, were both awarded Fletcher Jones faculty scholarships. Assistant Professor of Accounting Karen Nelson is the new James and Doris McNamara Faculty Fellow, and Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior Pamela Haunschild is the Class of '69 Faculty Fellow. Mary Ann Huckabay, a lecturer in organizational behavior, is the Class of '63 Lecturer.
       In addition, five faculty members were awarded fellowships by the Business School Trust, an endowment fund established and managed by GSB alumni/ae. They are Ron Kasznik, assistant professor of accounting; Keith Krehbiel, the Edward B. Rust Professor of Political Science; James Lattin, associate professor of marketing and management science; John Roberts, the Jonathan B. Lovelace Professor of Economics; and Seungjin Whang, associate professor of operations, information, and technology.
       The other three received fellowships from anonymous donors. They are William Barnett, associate professor of strategic management and organizational behavior; Sunil Kumar, assistant professor of operations, information, and technology; and Paul Romer, professor of economics.