News
Latest news from the Department of Finance can always be found on the homepage http://www.finance.unimelb.edu.au
April 2008
- Congratulations to Dr Xin (Simba) Chang whose paper (co-authored with Sudipto Dasgupta) "Target Behavior and Financing: How Conclusive is the Evidence?" was just accepted for publication in the Journal of Finance. The research project was partially funded by the Melbourne Centre for Financial Studies.
- Congratulations to Tariq Haque who has completed his PhD. His thesis titled “Leader Stocks, Follower Stocks and Switching Effects in the Australian Market” received very positive reviews from the examiners.
- Deans awards
Congratulations to Jessica Curtis for winning the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Tutoring for 2007. Jessica Curtis has tutored a large number of classes in the first year subject – Finance 1- and the third year subject - Corporate Finance. As indicated by her excellent QoT scores in both subjects, Jessica actively engages her students by encouraging questioning, proposing alternative solutions and suggesting examples and applications in the real world. Jessica has been instrumental in the successful implementation of FinanceNow! – a real time news source provided to students that has been directly linked to improved student learning outcomes.
Congratulations also to Les Coleman and Sean Pinder for winning the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching – Open Award for 2007. Given relatively limited financial resources, Dr Coleman and Dr Pinder have engaged their students in an area that is often viewed as technically challenging and have rigorously evaluated and published their work in a scholarly manner. They have developed a student learning tool FinanceNow! that has engaged students in application of theory in practice in first and third year finance subjects. The model is transferable to other subjects in the Faculty.
March 2008
- PhD completions
Congratulations to Hong Feng Zhang (and his supervisors Rob Brown, Greg Schwann, and Xin Chang) for successfully completing all requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy with his thesis Shareholder Rights, Firm Performance and Information Flow.
Congratulations also to Kim Loong Choo (and his supervisors Kim Sawyer and Greg Schwann) for successfully completing all requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy with his thesis Information, Day Trading and Market Behavior. - Media Alert
Assoc. Professor Christine Brown and Professor Kevin Davis hit the news (Business Spectator): with a sub-prime analysis. Read the online article
February 2008
- Congratulations to Assoc. Professor Christine Brown and Professor Kevin Davis whose paper “Distortions in the Tax Treatment of Rights Issues” has been accepted for publication in JASSA
January 2008
- Congratulations to Dr Les Coleman, who was awarded one of three runner-up merit prizes in the JASSA Prize competition for best original article submitted for publication in JASSA.
- Congratulations to Professor Kevin Davis for his publication “Increasing Household Financial Risk – An Increasing Social Risk” in Dialogue, the quarterly publication of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.
December 2007
- Congratulations to Professor Kevin Davis whose paper “Financial Sector Reform: Longer-run Policy Responses to the Asian Crisis” has been selected for publication in a volume of the Series: Advancing East Asian Integration, published by Routledge in collaboration with the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
- In the News:
Professor Kevin Davis appeared on ABC TV's Lateline Business on Thursday 5 December speaking about changes to the Reserve Bank's communications policy. Transcript and more information is available on the ABC website
- It is with great pleasure that the Department of Finance announces its annual Outstanding Tutor Awards. The two awards recognize the significant contribution of our tutors to the overall teaching performance of the department and are awarded annually by semester to the tutor with the highest score in the Department of Finance Quality of Teaching questionnaire. The 2007 Outstanding Tutor Awards are awarded to Ms Jessica Curtis and Ms Elaine Oon.
Congratulations to both and a BIG THANK YOU to all our tutors for another great year!
November 2007
- Congratulations to Sean Pinder whose paper (co-authored with Steve Easton)
“A Refutation of the Existence of the Other January Effect.”
was accepted for publication in the International Review of Finance
- Congratulations to Harry Scheule (and his co-author Daniel Roesch) whose paper ‘Multi-Year Dynamics for Forecasting Economic and Regulatory Capital in Banking’ has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Credit Risk.
October 2007
- Congratulations to Simba Chang, André Gygax, Elaine Oon, and John Zhang whose paper
“Audit Quality, Auditor Compensation and IPO Underpricing” was accepted for publication in Accounting and Finance.
- Congratulations to Michael Chng, Chander Shekhar and Harry Scheule for being awarded MCFS research grants.
September 2007
- Congratulations to Department of Finance staff who have secured two ARC Discovery Grants. Lead investigator Associate Professor Christine Brown received a grant for the project: Share buybacks and information asymmetry: winners and losers. Lead investigator Professor Paul Kofman received a grant for the project: Three decades of financial distress and corporate restructuring in Australia.
- In the news:
Professor Kevin Davis's comments on the subprime mortgage crisis appeared in print in the New York Times ("Why a U.S. Subprime Mortgage Crisis Is Felt Around the World"), on August 31, 2007.
Read the New York Times Article online
August 2007
- The Department of Finance is pleased to congratulate Dr Rayna Brown and Dr Les Coleman with their well deserved promotions to Senior Lecturer.
July 2007
- Congratulations to Simba Chang who was awarded a Hong Kong RGC research grant (of HK $524,000) for his project Financing and market activity.
- Congratulations to Chander Shekhar whose paper (co-authored with Geof
Stapledon) "Governance Structures of Initial Public Offerings in Australia"
has been accepted for publication in Corporate Governance: An
International Review.
- Congratulations to Iain Maclachlan (and his supervisors Christine Brown and Kevin Davis) for being awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy without further examination or amendment. In the words of one of the examiners, Iain's thesis, An empirical study of corporate bond pricing with unobserved capital structure dynamics "...is the first study to demonstrate that the implicit estimation of firm solvency and model parameters improves the predictive accuracy of credit risk structural models."
- Congratulations to Sean Pinder who was awarded the Pearson Education Accounting/Finance Lecturer of the Year Award, endorsed by AFAANZ and judged by the Education Directors of CPA Australia, the ICAA and the NZICA. The announcement was made at the recent AFAANZ meetings in Brisbane.
June 2007
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Congratulations to Les Coleman for his forthcoming publication in the Monash Business Review: the cover story "A lot of hot air?".
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Congratulations to Jessica Curtis and Sean Pinder whose paper
"Why Break Fee Restrictions May Harm Target Company Shareholders"
has been accepted for publication in AGENDA.
May 2007
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Congratulations to Les Coleman and Sean Pinder who were awarded a 2007/2008 AFAANZ Research Grant for their project “Managerial Perspectives on Corporate Finance Decisions.”
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Congratulations to Howard Chan whose paper with Rob Faff and Philip Gharghori entitled "Are the Fama-French Factors Proxying Default Risk?" was accepted for publication in the Australian Journal of Management.
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Congratulations to Harry Scheule whose paper Stress-Testing Credit Risk Parameters – An Application to Retail Loan Portfolios (co-authored with Daniel Roesch) has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Risk Model Validation. The research is funded by the Melbourne Centre for Financial Studies.
- Congratulations to Asjeet Lamba whose paper The valuation effects of prime rate revisions: Is there an advantage of being first? (co-authored with Mohamed Ariff) has been accepted for publication in the International Review of Finance.
April 2007
- Congratulations to Rayna Brown, Greg Schwann and Callum Scott whose article Personal Residential Real Estate Investment in Australia: Investor Characteristics and Investment Parameters has been accepted for publication in Real Estate Economics.
- Congratulations to John Handley, whose paper A Measure of the Efficacy of the Australian Imputation Tax System (co-authored with Krishnan Maheswaran) has been accepted for publication in The Economic Record.
- Congratulations to Harry Scheule (and his co-author Daniel Roesch) whose paper Credit Rating Impact on CDO Evaluation won Best Paper Award at the Global Finance Conference.
March 2007
- Professor Rob Brown was awarded the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Open Award) at the 2007 Faculty of Economics and Commerce Dean's Awards Ceremony held on Tuesday 27 March.
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Congratulations to John Handley whose paper A Re-Examination of the Historical Equity Risk Premium in Australia (co-authored with Tim Brailsford and Krishnan Maheswaran) has been accepted for publication in Accounting and Finance.
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Congratulations to Les Coleman who has three papers forthcoming this year:
Measurement of insider trading in wagering markets in Applied Financial Economics;
Risk and decision making by finance executives: a survey study in the International Journal of Managerial Finance; and
Just how serious is insider trading? An evaluation using thoroughbred wagering markets in The Journal of Gambling Business and Economics.
- Congratulations to Howard Chan whose paper Management earnings forecasts in a continuous disclosure environment (co-authored with Rob Faff, Yew Kee Ho and Alan Ramsay) was accepted for publication in Pacific Accounting Review.
- In the News.
21 March, "Australian Financial Review": Dr Les Coleman's article "Picking right CEO is critical" featured in the Opinion Pages.
Read the original text courtesy of Dr Coleman
- Congratulations to Christine Brown, whose paper The Announcement Effects of Off-Market Share Repurchases in Australia was accepted for publication by the Australian Journal of Management.
- Congratulations to Christine Brown and her co-author Ana Belén Alonso Conde, whose paper Public Private Partnerships: Incentives, Risk Transfer and Real Options was accepted for publication in the Review of Financial Economics.
- In the News.
Professor Kevin Davis appeared on Lateline Business (ABC) on Wednesday 7 March.
Kevin was interviewed by Neil Woolrich about how hedge funds become major stakeholders in companies subject to takeover (Hedge funds snap up large portion of Qantas).
Read the transcript from the Lateline website
- In the News.
Dr Les Coleman appeared on ABC Radio National - Saturday Extra on Saturday 3 March.
Les was interviewed by Geraldine Doogue about behavioural finance aspects of the sudden collapse in share prices on worldwide stock exchanges.
More information and audio on the Staurday Extra website
February 2007
- Congratulations to John Handley whose paper Dividend Policy: Reconciling DD with MM has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Financial Economics.
- Congratulations to our Honours alumni, Sabriyah Denham, Eugene Fung and Amy Zhu, who were awarded a Kinsman Studentship.
January 2007
- Congratulations to Howard Chan, whose paper "Asymmetric Market Reactions of Growth and Value Firms with Management Earnings Forecasts"
co-authored with Robert Faff, Yew Kee Ho and Alan Ramsay has been accepted for publication in the International Review of Finance.
- Congratulations to Chander Shekhar, with two publications forthcoming: "Shell Companies as IPO Alternatives: An Analysis of Trading Activity around Reverse Mergers" (with Murat Aydogdu and Violet Torbey) - in Applied Financial Economics, and "Product Modularity and the Product Lifecycle" (with Peter Cebon and Oscar Hauptman) - in International Journal of Technology Management).
- Congratulations to Professor Kevin Davis whose paper "Australian Credit Unions and the Demutualization Agenda" was accepted for publication in the Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics.
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Congratulations to Professor Paul Kofman, whose paper (co-authored with Rachel Campbell, Catherine Forbes and Kees Koedijk) "Increasing Correlations or Just Fat Tails?" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Empirical Finance.
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Congratulations to Associate Professor Kim Sawyer, whose paper "The Necessary Illegitimacy of the Whistleblower" has been
accepted for publication in the Business & Professional Ethics Journal.
- Congratulations to Dr Rayna Brown. Her paper "The effect of CEO overconfidence on corporate acquisition: Australian evidence." (co-authored with Neal Sarma) has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Economics and Business.
November 2006
- Congratulations to Associate Professor Howard Chan, for his paper with Rob Faff, Phil Gharghori and Yew Kee Ho - "The Relation between R&D Expenditure and Future Market Returns - Does Expensing versus Capitalization Matter?" accepted for publication in the Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting (RQFA).
- Congratulations to Dr Callum Scott for his publication Measuring Contagion in the South-East Asian Economic Crisis: An Exploration using Artificial Neural Networks in the Accounting Research Journal.
- It is with great pleasure that the Department of Finance announces its inaugural Outstanding Tutor Awards.
The two awards recognize the significant contribution of our tutors to the overall teaching performance of the department, and are awarded annually by semester to the tutor with the highest score in the Department of Finance quality of teaching questionnaire.
The 2006 Outstanding Tutor Awards are awarded to Mr Neil Ziniu Luo and Mr Wai Man Maurice Ng.
Congratulations to both and a BIG THANK YOU to all our tutors for another great year!
October 2006
- Congratulations to André Gygax , whose paper (co-authored with Anna Griffiths) " Do Venture Capitalists Imitate Portfolio Size?" has been accepted for publication in Financial Markets and Portfolio Management.
- Congratulations to A/Prof Greg Schwann, Prof GC Lim and Dr Q Zeng whose project," Consumption, Financial Wealth and Housing Wealth over the Long Run", has been approved for funding of $194,000 over 3 years starting in 2007.
Project Summary: The research gives economic policymakers a better understanding of the linkages between housing and financial market fluctuations and economic stability in Australia.
- Congratulations to Prof Bruce Grundy and Prof RA Heanney, whose project "Storage and the Hotelling Valuation Principle: Understanding the Dynamics of the Oil Industry" has been approved for funding of $345,000 over 3 years starting in 2007. Project Summary: Understanding the economics of the oil market is important for understanding the shift toward smaller, more fuel-efficient motor vehicles and less fuel-intensive farming techniques.
September 2006
- Congratulations to Ian O'Connor whose paper (co-authored with Michael Johnson and Bill Malcolm), " The Role of Agribusiness Assets in Investment Portfolios",
was published in the Australian Agribusiness Review, Vol 14, 2006.
August 2006
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Congratulations to Sean Pinder and Steve Easton, whose paper "Predicting Reserve Bank of Australia Interest Rate Announcements using the 30-Day Interbank Cash Rate Futures Contract: Beware of the Target Rate Tracker" was accepted for publication in the Australian Economic Review.
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Congratulation to Christine Brown and Katrina Efthim whose paper "The Effect of Taxation on Equal Access Buybacks in Australia" has just been published in the International Review of Finance.
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Congratulations to Christine Brown and Kevin Davis, whose paper " Shareholders or Unsecured Creditors? Credit Markets and the Sons of Gwalia Judgement" has been accepted for publication in Agenda, A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform.
- Congratulations to Rob Brown, Howard Chan and Yew Kee Ho (NUS) whose paper "Initiating coverage, broker reputation and management earnings forecasts in Australia" has been accepted for publication in Accounting and Finance.
- Congratulations to Howard Chan and his co-authors for their publication: ' Factors or Characteristics? That is the Question' in the Pacific Accounting Review.
- Open Day Presentation - WHY STUDY FINANCE
Download Professor Paul Kofman's PowerPoint slides (560K)
Listen to Professor Paul Kofman's presentation (iLecture Quicktime streaming audio)
- Congratulations to Rob Brown and Sean Pinder, who were awarded the Australian Publisher's Award for excellence in tertiary publishing for their Business Finance text book (co-authored with Graham Peirson, Peter Howard and Steve Easton).
- Congratulations to Dr Harald Scheule. His paper 'Forecasting Credit Event Frequency - Empirical Evidence for West German Firms' has been accepted by the Journal of Risk. It is written in collaboration with Deutsche Bundesbank and looks at the implications of systematic risks on credit risk forecasts.
July 2006
- Congratulations to Christine Brown, Kevin Davis and Les Coleman on gaining an ARC linkage grant for their project: Risk management policies and practices of major Australian firms.
June 2006
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Congratulations to Xin Chang, Lewis Tam, Tek Jun Tan and George Wong with their forthcoming publication: The Real Impact of Stock Market Mispricing - Evidence from Australia, in the Pacific Basin Finance Journal.
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Congratulations to our Honours students, Joshua Blakey and Rebecca Pitt, who were accepted to present
their Honours research projects at the 2006 National Honours Colloquium (UNSW).
- Congratulations to Les Coleman. His book Why Managers and Companies Take Risks has just been published by the prestigious Physica-Verlag publishing house.
- Congratulations to Sean Pinder and Asjeet Lamba who were awarded a $11,400 teaching grant from the Faculty of Economics and Commerce for their project: The development of flexible assessment tools for quantitative-based finance subjects.
May 2006
- Paul Kofman's research article, "Migration of price discovery in semiregulated derivatives markets" (Anthony D. Hall, Paul Kofman, Steven Manaster) is available in the Journal of Futures Markets Vol 26, Issue 3.
- Congratulations to Qi Zeng, awarded a Melbourne Centre for Financial Studies grant for his project "Dividend Strip and Information Revelation".
- Congratulations to Simba and his co-authors George Wong, John Zhang and Tek Jun Tan, whose paper: "The Effects of Financial Constraints on Corporate Policies in Australia" was accepted for publication in Accounting and Finance.
April 2006
- The Department of Finance has subscribed to the Wharton Research database Service (WRDS) to provide a range of financial databases to researchers in the Department. The range of databases available has also increased. See the Financial Databases webpage for more information
March 2006
- Dr Xin (Simba) Chang's forthcoming The Journal of Finance article "Analyst Coverage and Financing Decisions" (Xin Chang, Sudipto Dasgupta, and Gilles Hilary) is available for download from their website http://www.afajof.org/journal/forth_abstract.asp?ref=286
- Congratulations to En-Te (John) Chen for being awarded his PhD for his thesis To Invest or not to Invest? Theory and Evidence on Stock Holdings over the Life-Cycle