David Mayers was professor emeritus of finance at UC Riverside’s School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Rochester, his M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and his B.S. in engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis.
Dave Mayers served as co-editor of the Journal of Finance from 1988-1995 during his time as the Arthur E. Shepard Professor of Insurance at Ohio State University (1986 to 1995). He is remembered by colleagues at OSU as helping OSU finance take major strides forward. He had a considerable impact on the Ph.D. program and on the general culture of the department there.
In his research, Dave will be remembered for introducing non-marketable assets (such as human capital) in the CAPM, for some of the earliest research on block trades, and for a considerable body of work on the insurance industry . His most cited paper, “On the corporate demand for insurance”, co-authored with Cliff Smith, derives conditions under which firms will hold insurance contracts. He will be missed.