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Finance PhD Candidate
Haas School of Business,
University of California,
Berkeley
email
Tel: +1 (510) 684-8179
1061 Keith Ave
Berkeley, CA 94708
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WELCOME!
Research Interests
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Behavioral Finance
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Household Finance
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Asset Pricing
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Evolutionary Anthropology
My research
focus is behavioral, reflecting the time I have spent at the “sharp end” of
finance as a fixed income trader. My job market paper is in the field of
household finance, and I use experimental methods to demonstrate that an
individual’s social status level determines his or her rate of time
preference. This has implications for the regulation of consumer financial
products, including credit cards, retirement accounts, payroll lending,
etc., since low-status individuals are more time-inconsistent than
high-status individuals and make worse financial choices.
My job
market paper opens many avenues to further research. When preferences are
viewed as dynamic, many correlations in household finance and economics can
be viewed in a different light. For example, the tendency of lower- and
middle-income consumers to take on installment debt effectively reduces
their level of discretionary income and removes the temptation of immediate
consumption. The experimental methods I develop in the paper have broad
applicability in the study of financial and economic preferences, and I am
currently running further experiments on a variety of topics.
During the
PhD program I have taken time to broaden my academic foundation by studying
non-economic disciplines, including psychology, anthropology, sociology,
and evolutionary biology. One output from this study is a research paper
connecting social status and the evolution of many human traits (“Social
Incentives and Human Evolution”).
Teaching Interests
My teaching
interests derive from my research focus and the time I spent as a finance
practitioner in industry. I would love to teach classes in Behavioral
Finance, particularly at the PhD level since the students have the proper
academic grounding to put the behavioral approach into perspective. The
core masters and undergraduate level courses in finance are interesting
because I can combine both the practitioner’s and the academic’s
approaches. Finally, I would very much like to teach a case-based course
that can draw on my diverse background—similar to the Case Study (Chapter
19) that I developed for Jonathan Berk and Peter DeMarzo’s textbook.
Curriculum Vitae: cv
Education
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Ph.D. (c) Finance, University of California,
Berkeley, Haas School of Business
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M.B.A. Finance, University of Pennsylvania,
Wharton School, 1996
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B.A. Mathematics, University of Oxford, Lady
Margaret Hall, 1988
Professional Experience
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1996-2002: Trader, Bankers Trust and
Deutsche Bank Global Markets. As part of the Credit Derivatives Group, I
traded various esoteric credit products. Promoted from Associate to Senior
Associate (June 1998) to Vice President (Dec. 1998) to Director (Dec.
1999).
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1991-1994: Senior Associate, Enron
Development Corp
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1988-1991: Accounting Associate, Ernst &
Young Management Consultants. I also qualified as a Chartered Accountant.
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