Academic Competition
Academic Competition Winners
2024 Awards
First Place
Leland Bybee – University of Chicago – “The Ghost in the Machine: Generating Beliefs with Large Language Models”
Second Place
Norman Guo – St. Louis University – “Can Machines Understand Human Skills? Insights from Analyst Selection”
Third Place
Dat Mai – University of Missouri – “StockGPT: A GenAI Model for Stock Prediction and Trading”
2023 Awards
First Place
Nikolas Vasilas – Lancaster University – “Power Sorting”
Second Place
Mihail Velikov – Pennsylvania State University – “Assaying Anomalies”
Third Place
Xiaofei Zhao – Georgetown University – “Labor Market Networks, Fundamentals, and Stock Returns”
2022 Awards
First Place
Stephan Heller – Harvard Business School – “Hidden Alpha”
Second Place
Cameron Peng – London School of Economics – “Factor Demand and Factor Returns”
Third Place
Yuan Tian – University of Cincinnati – “Expected Growth and Stock Returns: A Machine Learning Approach”
2021 Awards
First Place
William Mullins, University of California – San Diego – “Echo Chambers”
Second Place
Dat Mai, University of Missouri – “Economic Narratives and Market Outcomes: A Semi-Supervised Topic Modeling Approach”
Third Place
Tengjia Shu, University of Iowa – “Identifying Signals of the Cross Section of Stock Returns”
2019 Awards
First Place
Johnathan Loudis University at Notre Dame – “Expectations in the Cross Section: Stock Price Reactions to the Information and Bias in Analyst-Expected Returns”
Second Place
Xi Wu at University of Rochester – “Labor Links and Shock Transmissions”
Third Place
Ai He University at South Carolina – “More Factors are Needed: Evidence from a Simple Test”
2018 Awards
First Place
Mamdouh Medhat at Cass Business School (London) – “Short Term Momentum”
Second Place
Quan Wen at Georgetown University – “Crowdsourced Employer Reviews and Stock Returns”
Third Place
Dacheng Xiu at University of Chicago -“Empirlcal Asset Pricing Via Machine Learning”
2017 Awards
First Place
Kevin Mullaly at University of Alabama – “Prime (Information) Brokerage”
Second Place
Chen Xue at University of Cincinnati – “Replicating Anomalies”
Third Place
Xintong Zhan at Erasmus University of Rotterdam – “How Do Smart Beta ETF’s Affect the Asset Management Industry? Evidence from Mutual Fund Flows”
2016 Awards
First Place
Quoc Nguyen at University of Illinois at Chicago – “Lazy Prices”
Second Place
Jongsub Lee at University of Florida – “Related Securities and the Cross-Section of Stock Return Momentum: Evidence From Credit Default Swaps”
Third Place
Linghang Zeng at Georgia Tech – “Does History Repeat Itself? Business Cycle and Industry Returns”
European Finance Association Doctoral Tutorial Winner
Sehoon Kim at Ohio State University – “Cash, Financial Flexibility, and Product Prices: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in the Airline Industry”
2015 Awards
First Place
Joseph Gerakos at Tuck School of Business – “Accruals, Cash Flows and Operating Profitability in the Cross-Section of Stock Returns”
Second Place
Kewei Hou at Ohio State University – “A Comparison of New Factor Models”
Third Place
Denys Glushkov at University of Pennsylvania – “How Smart are Smart Beta ETF’s? Analysis of Relative Performance and Factor Timing”
European Finance Association Doctoral Tutorial Winner
Elisabeth Kempf at Tilburg University – “The Job Rating Game: The Effects of Revolving Doors on Analyst Incentives”
2014 Awards
First Place
Li An at Tsinghua University – “Asset Pricing When Traders Sell Extreme Winners and Losers”
Second Place
Jiasun Li at UCLA – “Slow Price Adjustment to Public News in After-hours Trading”
Third Place
Huijun Wang at University of Delaware – “Prospect Theory and the Risk = Return Trade Off”
European Finance Association Doctoral Tutorial Winner
Vincent Bogousslavsky, EPFL, Swiss Finance Institute – Infrequent Rebalancing and Short-term Return Predictability
2013 Awards
First Place
Qingzhong Ma at Cornell University – “Momentum and Insider Trading”
Second Place
Andrea Yinjia Lu at Northwestern University – “Slow Diffusion of Information and Price Momentum in Stocks: Evidence from Options Markets”
Third Place
Jerimiah Green at Penn State – “The Remarkable Multidimensionality in the Cross-Section of Expected U.S. Stock Returns”
2012 Awards
First Place
Jianfeng Yu at University of Minnesota – “Investor Sentiment and Economic Forces”
Second Place
Joseph Gerakos at University of Chicago – “Decomposing Value”
Third Place
Jake Thornock at University of Washington – “The Informativeness of Stale Financial Disclosures”
2011 Awards
First Place
Nitish Ranjan Sinha at University of Illinois at Chicago – “Under Reaction to News in the U.S. Stock Market”
Tied for Second Place
Buhui Qui at Erasmus University – “Options-Implied Variance and Future Stock Returns”
Sandhya Vallapuzha at Georgia State University – “Agency Problems in Target-Date Funds”
2010 Awards
First Place
Lukasz Pomorski at University of Toronto – “Decoding Inside Information”
Second Place
Ankur Pareek at Rutgers University – “Institutional Investors’ Investment Durations and Stock Return Anomalies: Momentum, Reversal, Accruals, Share Issuance and R&D Increases”
Third Place
Yuehua Tang at Georgia State University – “Do Institutional Investors Have an Ace Up Their Sleeves? Evidence from Confidential Filings of Portfolio Holdings”
2009 Awards
First Place
Zhi Da at Notre Dame – “In Search of Attention”
Second Place
Jeffrey Ng at MIT – “Market Pricing of Banks’ Fair Value Assets Reported under SFAS 157 During the 2008 Financial Crisis”
Third Place
Hao Zhou at Federal Reserve Board – “Variance Risk Premia Asset Predictability Puzzles”
2008 Awards
First Place
Itzhak Ben-David at Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University – “Manipulation of Collateral Values by Borrowers and Intermediaries”
Second Place
Usman Ali at Yale University – “Analysts’ Use of Public Information and Profitability of their Recommendation Revisions”
Third Place
Buhui Qiu at University of Cincinnati – “The Return Predictive Power of Institutional Ownership”
2007 Awards
First Place
David McLean at University of Alberta – “Costly Arbitrage and Idiosyncratic Risk: Evidence from Short Sellers”
Second Place
Wei Jiang at Columbia Business School – “Hedge Fund activism, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance”
Third Place
Sonya Lim at Depaul University – “Driven to Distraction: Extraneous News and Underreaction to Earnings News”
2006 Awards
First Place
Lauren Cohen at Yale University – “Economic Links and Predictable Returns”
Second Place
Feng Li at University of Michigan – “Do Stock Market Investors Understand the Risk Sentiment of Corporate Annual Reports”
Third Place
Steven Heston at University of Maryland – “Seasonality in the Cross-Section of Stock Returns”
2005 Awards
First Place
Weili Ge at University of Michigan – “Off-Balance-Sheet Activities Earnings Persistence and Stock Prices: Evidence From Operation Leases”
Second Place
Gergana Jostova at George Washington University – “Momentum and Credit Rating”
Third Place
Karl Diether at Ohio State University – “Supply and Demand Shifts in the Shorting Markets”
2004 Awards
First Place
Andrea Frazzini at Yale University – “The Disposition Effect and Under-reaction to News”
Second Place
Zoran Ivkovich at University of Illinois – “Portfolio Concentration and Performance of Individual Investors”
Third Place
Cheol Eun at Georgia Tech University – “International Diversification with Large- and Small-Cap Stocks”
2003 Awards
First Place
Allen Poteshman at University of Illinois – “The Information in Option Volume for Future Stock Prices”
Second Place
Malcolm Baker at Harvard Business School – “Investor Sentiment and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns”
Third Place
Doron Avramov – at University of Maryland – “Stock Returns are Predictable: A Firm Level Analysis”
2002 Awards
First Place
Christo Pirinsky at Texas A&M University – “Time-Series Versus Cross-Sectional Momentum: What’s the Difference?”
Second Place
David Ng at Cornell University – “Corruption and International Valuation: Does Virtue Pay?”
Third Place
Xi Li at University of Miami – “Will Past Leaders Still Lead? Performance Persistence of Financial Analysts”
2000 Awards
First Place
Sundaresh Ramnath at Rice University – “Under-reaction to Self-Selected News Events: The Case of Stock Splits”
Second Place
Charles Jones at Columbia University – “A Century of Stock Market Liquidity and Trading Costs”
Third Place
Hsui-Lang Chen at University of Illinois – Chicago – “On Characteristics Momentum”
1999 Awards
First Place
David Robinson at University of Chicago – “Industry Concentration and Industry Average Returns”
Second Place
Richard Warr at Kansas State University – “The Decline of Inflation and the Bull Market of 1982-1997”
Third Place
Christopher Geczy at University of Pennsylvania – “Is the Abnormal Return Following Equity Issuances Anomalous?”
1998 Awards
First Place
Bhaskran Swaminathan at Cornell University – “PriceMomentum and Trading Volume”
Tied for Second Place
Richard Sloan at University of Michigan – “Using Cash Flow Data for New Insight into Form Earnings Performance”
Douglas Skinner at University of Michigan – “Earnings Surprises, Growth Expectations, and Stock Returns or Don’t Let an Earnings Torpedo Sink Your Portfolio”
1997 Awards
First Place
John Nofsinger at Marquette University – “Herding by Institutional and Individual Investors”
Second Place
Christopher Polk at University of Chicago – “Financial Constraints and Stock Returns”
Third Place
Albert Wang at Columbia University – “Overconfidence, Delegated Fund Management, and Survival”
