Archives: News

The AFA announced the selection of G. William Schwert as a member of the AFA Society of Fellows at the annual meeting in Atlanta. Bill Schwert is a Distinguished University Professor of Finance and Statistics at the University of Rochester’s William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration. He received his A.B. with honors in economics from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1971, his M.B.A. in 1973 and his Ph.D. in 1975 both from the University of Chicago.

Bill has been one of the Editors of the Journal of Financial Economics since 1979 and the Managing Editor of the JFE since 1996.  He has been a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1988. In 1982, Bill was the first Center for Research in Security Prices Distinguished Research Scholar at the University of Chicago. His paper “Why Does Stock Market Volatility Change Over Time?” won a Smith-Breeden Distinguished Paper Prize from the Journal of Finance in 1990 and his paper “Stock Market Volatility” won the Graham and Dodd Plaque from the Financial Analysts Journal in 1990.

Bill’s research has covered broad areas of economics, finance and statistics, including:

• the relations among interest rates, inflation rates and asset returns;
  
• the effects of stock market volatility on asset returns;
  
• the effects of government regulation on business;
  
• the market for corporate control;
  
• the behavior of the IPO market and
  
• the use of modern time series techniques to analyze economic and financial data.

The American Finance Association’s 2019 Fischer Black Prize is awarded to Professor Ralph Koijen of the University of Chicago. The prize is awarded to the person under 40 whose work best exemplifies the Fischer Black hallmark of developing original research that is relevant to finance practice. Professor Koijen’s work meets this high standard.

Ralph S.J. Koijen is a Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow of the Center for Economic Policy Research. He serves as an Editor of the Review of Financial Studies and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Political Economy.

Professor Koijen’s research focuses on finance, insurance, and macroeconomics. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Financial Economics. His research has been covered in popular media, such as the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Economist.Before joining Chicago Booth in 2018, Professor Koijen was a Professor of Finance at the London Business School and NYU Stern, and an Assistant and Associate Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth. He received his undergraduate degree in Econometrics from Tilburg University and his Ph.D. in Finance from Tilburg University.

Congratulations to the officers and directors elected in the AFA 2018 election:

• President: David Hirshleifer,
• President Elect and 2020 Program Chair: Kenneth Singleton,
• Vice President: John Graham,
• Directors: Andrea Eisfeldt, Anna Pavlova, and Ingrid Werner