Who am I?

Well, an academic is usually defined by his (her) research focus. So my basic research focus is empirical corporate finance and the economics of information. In information economics, my focus is on the acquisition and utilization of information by participants in a market framework - I am interested in checking whether markets are efficient in incorporating information into prices. Why is this important? Market efficiency means that it is impossible to make money on the stock market - a rather dismal view of life. If markets are not efficient, it may be possible to make money on the stock markets.

So how do we check that markets are efficient or not? One way is to turn to the area of empirical corporate finance, looking at event studies in particular. I investigate the market reaction to corporate events such as mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and so on, both in the short and long run. This relates to the speed of incorporation of information into prices by the market as a whole. I believe that markets are not efficient in the short-run.

Whether they are efficient in the long run is a subject of considerable debate in the profession today. I argue that in many cases, markets are not necessarily efficient in the long run either. My thesis for example, investigated a specific form of this inefficiency in the performance of acquiring firms in mergers and acquisitions.