Awards
Images by Beth Rooney
Sufi Receives Inaugural JPMorgan Young Researcher Prize
Amir Sufi, assistant professor of finance, received the inaugural JPMorgan Young Researcher Prize. Sufi was honored for his research paper “Bank Lines of Credit in Corporate Finance: An Empirical Analysis.” The award, presented at the annual conference of the Western Finance Association in June, recognizes the best research accepted for publication in the Review of Financial Studies by a recent PhD graduate.
An earlier paper by Sufi, “Information Asymmetry and Financing Arrangements: Evidence from Syndicated Loans,” received awards from the Western Finance Association, Eastern Finance Association, and Midwest Finance Association. The paper was published in the Journal of Finance in April.
Sufi joined the faculty of Chicago Booth in 2005.
CME Honors Fama
Eugene Fama, MBA ’63, PhD ’64, Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, is the 2007 recipient of the Fred Arditti Innovation Award given by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Center for Innovation.
“The award celebrates innovation that, through practical application, has had a positive impact on the economic well-being of individuals, industry, or a nation,” according to the announcement from the CME, the world’s largest derivatives exchange.
In announcing this year’s award, Myron Scholes, MBA ’64, PhD ’70, Nobel Prize–winning economist and chairman of CME’s Competitive Markets Advisory Council, said, “Eugene Fama has had pathbreaking insights into the functioning of markets, asset-pricing theory, and corporate finance that have benefited market participants worldwide. He has written extensively on the efficiency of markets, setting the backdrop for the transfer of risks through futures contracts such as those traded on the CME. His innovative research has resulted in his participation in the development of many new finance products and in the development of new futures contracts for hedging risks.”
Pastor Wins Goldman Award
Lubos Pastor, professor of finance, received the 2007 Goldman Sachs Asset Management Award from the Western Finance Association for the best research in empirical investments. Pástor was honored for his paper “Predictive Systems: Living with Imperfect Predictors,” coauthored with Robert Stambaugh of Wharton. The award was presented at the association’s annual conference in June.
Pastor’s other recent research includes “Technological Revolutions and Stock Prices,” “Rational IPO Waves,” and “Was There a Nasdaq Bubble in the Late 1990s?” each coauthored with professor of finance Pietro Veronesi.
Gibbs Gets AAA Award
Michael Gibbs, clinical professor of economics, received the 2007 Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Literature Award from the American Accounting Association. Gibbs was the principal writer of the winning paper, “Determinants and Effects of Subjectivity in Incentives,” published in the Accounting Review.
The study looked at 526 department managers at 250 car dealerships and revealed that subjective bonuses are often used “to complement perceived weaknesses in quantitative performance measures and to provide employees insurance against downside risk in their pay.” In addition, pay satisfaction, productivity, and profitability all increased along with the manager’s tenure, suggesting that trust between manager and employee influences subjectivity
Murphy and Topel Earn Arrow Award
Kevin Murphy, PhD ’86 (economics), and Robert Topel won the Kenneth J. Arrow Award for the best research paper in health economics. The paper, “The Value of Health and Longevity,” was published in the Journal of Political Economy.
Murphy and Topel found that cumulative gains in life expectancy post-1900 were worth more than $1.2 million to the average American in 2000, whereas post-1970 gains added about $3.2 trillion per year to national wealth, equal to about half of the gross domestic product (GDP). Potential gains from future health improvements also are large, they found. For example, a 1 percent reduction in cancer mortality would be worth $500 billion.
Murphy is George J. Stigler Distinguished Service Professor of Economics. Topel is Isidore Brown and Gladys J. Brown Professor in Urban and Labor Economics.
Faculty Honored for JFE Papers
Four faculty members were honored for research published in the Journal of Financial Economics.
Eugene Fama and Raghuram Rajan each won a Jensen Prize, which recognizes the best research in corporate finance and organizations. Lubos Pastor and Pietro Veronesi won a Fama-DFA Prize honoring the best research in capital markets and asset pricing. The awards were for papers published during 2006.
Rajan, Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, won for his paper “Are Perks Purely Managerial Excess?” coauthored with Julie Wulf of Harvard Business School. Fama, Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, won for his paper “Profitability, Investment and Average Returns,” coauthored with Kenneth French. Pástor and Veronesi, professors of finance, were honored for their paper “Was There a Nasdaq Bubble in the Late 1990s?”
The Fama-DFA Prize is named for Fama, advisory editor of the journal, and for Dimensional Fund Advisors, which provides support for the award.
