Office of the Chief Economist Personnel

Staff Economists

Staff Analysts

Adjunct Professors

Lori Walsh

Vice President, Chief Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Finance | Pennsylvania State University
• Master of Business Administration | Pennsylvania State University
• Bachelor of Science | Accounting | Pennsylvania State University

Selected Publications and White Papers

• The Costs and Benefits of 12b-1 Fees, 2004 white paper, quoted in dozens of books, litigation briefs, online articles and financial publications, including the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, over the last 9 years. http://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/s70904/lwalsh042604.pdf
• Supermarket Distribution and Brand Recognition of Open-End Mutual Funds, Financial Services Review 16, 2007, 309-326 (with Conrad Ciccotello and Jason Greene)
• Should Investors Choose Funds from Focused Families? Financial Services Review 15, 2006, 247-264 (with Conrad Ciccotello and James Miles)
• Why Does a Fund Change Its Name? Journal of Investing 10(3), 2001, 75-80 (with Conrad Ciccotello)

Selected Working Papers

• The Evolution of Investor Information: Evidence from Public Securities Offerings, 2017. (with C.R. Alexander and M. Nimalendran)

Paul Rothstein

Senior Director, Assistant Chief Economist (Member Conduct)

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Economics | University of California, Berkeley
• Bachelor of Arts | Economics and Political Science | Yale University

Selected Publications and White Papers

• The Analysis of Benefits in Consumer Protection Regulations (with Howell E. Jackson, Harvard Business Law Review, Vol. 9, 2020, pp. 197-321.
• Consumer Financial Protection, Chapter 18 in Steven Payson (ed.), Public Economics in the United States: How The Federal Government Analyzes and Influences the Economy, 2014, Praeger/ABC-CLIO Publishers, pp. 445-472.
• Report to Congress Under Section 319 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, December 2012, U. S. Federal Trade Commission (basic research on the accuracy of consumer credit reports).
• Transferable Tax Credits in Missouri: An Analytical Review (with Nathan Weininger), Regional Economic Development, Vol. 3, 2007, pp. 53-74.

Harvey Westbrook, Jr.

Senior Director, Assistant Chief Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Economics | University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
• Master of Science | Applied Statistics | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Master of Science| Economics | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Bachelor of Arts | Economics and Managerial Science | Rice University

Selected Publications and White Papers

• “Hidden Treasures: Accessing Hidden Liquidity” (with Michael Rosen), Journal of Portfolio Management, 2007

Dror Kenett

Senior Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Physics | Tel-Aviv University
• Master of Science| Physics | Tel-Aviv University
• Bachelor of Science | Physics | Tel-Aviv University

Selected Publications and White Papers

• Interconnectedness in the global financial market. Journal of International Money and Finance 110 (2021): 102280 (with Matthias Raddant)
• Multi-dimensional Economic Connectivity: Benefits, Risks, and Policy Implications, Journal of International Finance and Economics 29(4), 2021, 6110-6127 (with David Gould and Georgi Panterov)
• The complexity of bank holding companies: a topological approach. Journal of Banking & Finance 118 (2020): 105789 (with Ark Flood, Robin Lumsdaine and Jonathan Simon)
• In the Eye of the Beholder: Regulatory Versus Industry Risk Perception, Journal of Risk Management in Financial Institutions 13(3), 2020, 242-254 (with Meghan Burns and Jonathan Sokobin)
• Looking Deeper, Seeing More: A Multilayer Map of the Financial System, OFR Brief 16, 06, 2016 https://www.financialresearch.gov/briefs/files/OFRbr_2016-06_Multilayer-Map.pdf (with Richard Bookstaber)
• A Map of Collateral Uses and Flows, Journal of Financial Market Infrastructures 5(2), 2016, 1-28 (with Andrea Aguiar, Richard M. Bookstaber, and Thomas Wipf)
• Dynamical Macroprudential Stress Testing Using Network Theory, Journal of Banking & Finance 59, 2015, 164-181 (with Sary Levy-Carciente, Adam Avakian, H. Eugene Stanley, and Shlomo Havlin)
• Emergence of Statistically Validated Financial Intraday Lead-lag Relationships, Quantitative Finance 15(8), 2015, 1375-1386 (with Chester Curme, Michele Tumminello, Rosario N. Mantegna, and H. Eugene Stanley)
• Dependency relations among international stock market indices, Journal of Risk and Financial Management 8(2), 2015, 227-265, http://www.mdpi.com/1911-8074/8/2/227/htm (with Junior, Leonidas Junior, Sandoval, Asher Mullokandov, and Dror Y. Kenett)
• Partial Correlation Analysis: Applications for Financial Markets, Quantitative Finance 15(4), 2015, 569-578 (Xuqing Huang, Irena Vodenska, Shlomo Havlin, and H. Eugene Stanley)
• Spontaneous Recovery in Dynamical Networks, Nature Physics 10(1), 2014, 34, https://www.nature.com/articles/nphys2819 (with Antonio Majdandzic, Boris Podobnik, Sergey V. Buldyrev, Shlomo Havlin, and H. Eugene Stanley)
• How High Frequency Trading Affects a Market Index, Scientific Reports 3, 2013, 2110, https://www.nature.com/articles/srep02110 (with Eshel Ben-Jacob, H. Eugene Stanley, and G. Gur-Gershgoren)
• Quantifying the Behavior of Stock Correlations under Market Stress, Scientific Reports 2, 2012, 752 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep00752 (with Tobias Preis, H. Eugene Stanley, Dirk Helbing, and Eshel Ben-Jacob)
• Dominating Clasp of the Financial Sector Revealed by Partial Correlation Analysis of the Stock Market PloS one 5(12), 2010, http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0015032 (with Michele Tumminello, Asaf Madi, Gitit Gur-Gershgoren, Rosario N. Mantegna, and Eshel Ben-Jacob)

Matthew Kozora

Senior Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Finance | University of Maryland
• Master of Science | Quantitative and Computational Finance | Georgia Institute of Technology
• Bachelor of Science | Business Administration | Washington & Lee University
• Bachelor of Arts | Mathematics | Washington & Lee University

Selected Publications and White Papers

• The Selection of Claims in Securities Arbitration for Settlement: A Text-Based Analysis (with Stephanie Denis, Minwen Li, and Jonathan Sokobin)
• Security Recommendations and the Liabilities of Broker-Dealers, Journal of Law, Finance, and Accounting, 2017

Patricia Ledesma Liebana

Senior Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Economics | University of Notre Dame
• Master of Arts | Economics | University of Notre Dame
• Bachelor of Arts | Social Science (Economics) | Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú

Selected Publications and White Papers

• Unions Role in Argentine and Chilean Pension Reform. (with Teresa Ghilarducci). World Development, Vol. 28, No. 4 (April 2000), pp. 753-762
• Efficient Analysis of Large Datasets. (with Kevin D. Brunson). In MidWest SAS User’s Group (ed.), 1998 MWSUG Conference Proceedings, pp. 149-154
• Midiendo la Hiperinflación. (with Gianfranco Castagnola). In Moneda, Central Reserve Bank of Peru, Lima, August 1989

Joon-Suk Lee

Senior Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Economics | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Master of Arts| Applied Economics | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Diploma (Master of Science-equivalent)| Industrial Engineering & Management | Universitaet Karlsruhe, Germany

Selected Publications and White Papers

• On Identification and Estimation of Heckman Models. (with Jonathan Cook and Noah Newberger). STATA Journal, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Jan 2021), pp. 972-998.
• Favoritism in Asymmetric Procurement Auctions. International Journal of Industrial Organization, Vol. 26, No. 6 (Nov 2008), pp. 1407–24.
• Amendment to Auditing Standards For Auditor's Use of the Work of Specialists, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, PCAOB Release No. 2018-006 (Dec 2018), lead author/economist for the section on "economic considerations".

Selected Working Papers

• Auditors' Use of In-house Specialists. (with Ally Zimmerman, Dereck Barr-Pulliam and Miguel Minutti-Meza). (June 2021).

Shawn M. O’Donoghue

Senior Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Finance | Indiana University
• Master of Science | Mathematics | University of Denver
• Master of Arts | French | Middlebury College
• Bachelor of Arts | Economics | Georgetown University

Selected Working Papers

• Brokerage Commissions: Transforming the Impact of Make-Take Fees on Order Execution Quality, 2018

Minwen Li

Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Finance | University of Maryland
• Master of Science | Econometrics | Tsinghua University (Beijing, China)
• Bachelor of Science | Finance | Peking University (Beijing, China)

Selected Publications and White Papers

• CEOs and the Product Market: When are Powerful CEOs Beneficial? Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 54, 2019, 2295-2326 (with Yao Lu and Gordon Phillips)
• Predicting Corporate Policies Using Downside Risk: A Machine Learning Approach, Journal of Empirical Finance 63, 2021, 1-26 (with Doron Avramov and Hao Wang)

Selected Working Papers

• The Selection of Claims in Securities Arbitration for Settlement: A Text-Based Analysis, 2022, FINRA Office of the Chief Economist Working Paper (with Stephanie Denis, Matthew Kozora, and Jonathan Sokobin)
• Bank Monitoring and Corporate Fraud: Evidence from a Natural Experiment, 2022 (with Tanakorn Makaew and Andrew Winton)
• Product Market Risk, Financial Development and Firm Creation Along the Supply Chain, 2022 (with Tanakorn Makaew and Vojislav Maksimovic)

Matt Peppe

Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (Candidate) | Finance | University of Maryland
• Bachelor of Science | Mathematics | College of William & Mary

Yue Tang

Economist

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Finance | Emory University
• Master of Science | Electrical Engineering | University of Pennsylvania
• Bachelor of Science | Electrical Engineering| Tsinghua University

Selected Publications and White Papers

• Use of Derivatives by Registered Investment Companies Division of Economic and Risk Analysis White Paper Series, 2015 (with Daniel Deli, Paul Hanouna, Christof W. Stahel, and William Yost)
• Do Anomalies Exist Ex Ante? Review of Finance 18(3), 2014, 843–75 (with Jin (Ginger) Wu and Lu Zhang)
• Gender and Job Performance: Evidence from Wall Street, Financial Analysts Journal, 2009 (with T. Clifton Green and Narasimhan Jegadeesh)

Selected Working Papers

• Business Connections and Informed Trading of Mutual Fund Managers
• Institutional Trades Around Takeover Announcements: Skill vs. Inside Information (with Narasimhan Jegadeesh)
• Analyst Proximity and Earnings Management (with Jin (Ginger) Wu)

 
 
 

Staff Analysts

Vy Nguyen

Principal Research Analyst

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy in Economics | American University
  • Dissertation: “Three Essays on Financial Market Development”
  • Specialization: International and Monetary Economics
• Master of Arts in Economics | American University
• Bachelor of Science | International Business & Finance| University of Arkansas

Selected Publications and White Papers

• Understanding asset holdings of Vietnamese households, Journal of the Asia Pacific (with Vy Thao Nguyen & Maria Sagrario Floro) (2020) Economy, 25:4, 654-674, DOI: 10.1080/13547860.2019.1699986

Noah Feldman

Associate Principal Research Analyst

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

Education

• Bachelor of Arts | Statistics| Carleton College

Selected Publications and White Papers

• A statistical analysis of lossily compressed climate model data. Computers & Geosciences, 145, 104599. (with Poppick, A., Nardi, J., Feldman, N., Baker, A. H., Pinard, A., & Hammerling, D. M.) (2020).
• Non-Financial Corporate Credit and Recessions, FEDS Notes. Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, March, 19, 2021, https://doi.org/10.17016/2380-7172.2877. (with Curcuru, Stephanie E., and Mohammad R. Jahan-Parvar) (2021).

 
 
 

Adjunct Professors

Amber Anand

Edward Pettinella Professor of Finance, Syracuse University

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

• Market structure, including market design; transaction costs analysis; broker and trading desk evaluation; inter-market competition; the role of market intermediaries; price discovery; market quality and structure of equity, options and corporate bond markets.

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Finance | Baruch College and GSUC, City University of New York
• M.Phil | Finance | Baruch College and GSUC, City University of New York
• Postgraduate | Diploma Management | International Management Institute, New Delhi

Selected Publications and White Papers

• Make-take structure and market quality: Evidence from the US options markets, Management Science, 2016, 62, 3271-3290. (with J. Hua and T. McCormick)
• Market Conditions, Fragility and the Economics of Market Making, Journal of Financial Economics, 2016, 121, 327-349, (with K. Venkataraman)
• Institutional Trading and Stock Resiliency: Evidence from the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis, Journal of Financial Economics, 2013, 108, 773-797. (with P. Irvine, A. Puckett and K. Venkataraman)
• Performance of Institutional Trading Desks: An Analysis of Persistence in Trading Cost, Review of Financial Studies, 2012, 25, 557-598. (with P. Irvine, A. Puckett and K. Venkataraman)
• Geographic Proximity and Price Discovery: Evidence from Nasdaq, Journal of Financial Markets, 2011, 14, 193-226 (Lead Article). (with V. Gatchev, L. Madureira, C. Pirinsky, and S. Underwood)
• Paying for market quality Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2009, 44, 1427-1457. (with C. Tanggaard and D. Weaver)
• Cleaning house: Stock reassignments on the NYSE Journal of Financial Markets, 2009, 12, 727-753. (with S. Chakravarty and C. Chuwonganant)
• Information and the intermediary: Are market intermediaries informed traders in electronic markets Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2008, 43, 1-28. (with A. Subrahmanyam)
• Stealth Trading in Options Markets Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2007, 42, 167-188. (with S. Chakravarty)
• The Value of the Specialist: Empirical Evidence from the CBOE, Journal of Financial Markets, 2006, 9, 100-118. (With D. Weaver)
• Empirical Evidence on the Evolution of Liquidity: Choice of Market versus Limit Orders by Informed and Uninformed Traders, Journal of Financial Markets, 2005, 8, 289-309. (with S. Chakravarty and T. Martell)
• Can Order Exposure be Mandated? Journal of Financial Markets, 2004, 7, 405-426. (with D. Weaver)

Selected Working Papers

• Do Buy-Side Institutions Supply Liquidity in Bond Markets? Evidence from Mutual Funds (with C. Jotikasthira and K. Venkataraman)
• Option Skill (with J. Hua and A. Puckett)
• Does Institutional Trading Affect Underwriting? (with P. Irvine and T. Liu)

Bruce Mizrach

Professor of Economics, Rutgers University

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

• Market microstructure, nonlinear time series analysis, financial crises

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Economics| University of Pennsylvania
• Bachelor of Arts | History | Tufts University

Selected Publications and White Papers

• The Microstructure of a U.S. Treasury ECN: The BrokerTec Platform, Journal of Financial Markets 40, 2018, 2-22 (with Michael Fleming and Giang Nguyen)
• Analysis of Securitized Asset Liquidity Research Note, FINRA Office of the Chief Economist, 2017 (with An He)
• Market Quality Breakdowns in Equities, Journal of Financial Markets, 28, 2016 1-23 (with Cheng Gao)
• Analysis of Corporate Bond Liquidity, Research Note, FINRA Office of the Chief Economist, 2015

Selected Working Papers

• Location Basis Differentials in Oil Prices, Rutgers University Working Paper, 2018, (with Phat Luong and Yoichi Otsubo)
• Disentangling the Effects of News, Small Jumps, and Large Jumps on Stock Return Predictability, Rutgers University Working Paper, 2018, (with Norman Swanson and Bo Yu)

Stanislava (Stas) Nikolova

Assistant Professor of Finance, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

• Fixed income markets; financial institution; financial regulation

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Finance | University of Florida
• Bachelor of Science | Management | State University of New York - Geneseo

Selected Publications and White Papers

• The Bond Pricing Implications of Rating-Based Capital Requirements, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming. [Best Paper Award, 2018 INQUIRE Europe/UK] (S. Murray and S. Nikolova, 2021)
• Portfolio Similarity and Asset Liquidation in the Insurance Industry, Journal of Financial Economics 142, 69-96. (G. Girardi, K. W. Hanley, S. Nikolova, L. Pelizzon and M. Sherman, 2021)
• Rethinking the Use of Credit Ratings in Capital Regulations: Evidence From the Insurance Industry, Review of Corporate Finance Studies 10, 347-401. (K. W. Hanley and S. Nikolova, 2021)
• Institutional Allocations in the Primary Market for Corporate Bonds, Journal of Financial Economics 137, 470-490. (S. Nikolova, L. Wang and J. Wu, 2020.)
• Strategic Estimation of Asset Fair Values, Journal of Accounting and Economics 66, 25-45.  (D. Jagolinzer, K. W. Hanley and S. Nikolova, 2018)
• Momentum in Corporate Bond Returns, Review of Financial Studies 26, 1649-1693.  (G. Jostova, S. Nikolova, A. Philipov and C. W. Stahel, 2013)
• Leverage Expectations and Bond Credit Spreads, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 47, 689-714. [Lead article] (M. J. Flannery, S. Nikolova and Ö. Öztekin, 2012)

Selected Working Papers

• The Transaction Costs of Trading Corporate Credit. (with G. Biswas and C. W. Stahel)
• Dealer Behavior and the Trading of Newly Issued Corporate Bonds. (with M. Goldstein and E. Hotchkiss)
• Corporate Bond Flipping. (with L. Wang)

Mehrdad Samadi

Senior Economist, Federal Reserve Board of Governors

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Areas of Concentration & Interest

• Financial economics

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy | Finance | The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Bachelor of Science | Finance | Rutgers University

Selected Publications and White Papers

• Automation, Intermediation and the Flash Crash, Journal of Investment Management 16, 17-28 (with Andrei Kirilenko, Albert Kyle, and Tugkan Tuzun)
• Institutional Order Handling and Broker-Affiliated Trading Venues, Review of Financial Studies 34, 3364-3402 (with Amber Anand, Jonathan Sokobin, and Kumar Venkataraman)
• Shorting in Broad Daylight: Short Sales and Venue Choice, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 1-24 (with Adam Reed and Jonathan Sokobin)
• The Flash Crash: High-Frequency Trading in an Electronic Market, Journal of Finance 72, 967–998 (with Andrei Kirilenko, Albert Kyle, and Tugkan Tuzun)

Kumar Venkataraman

Professor of Finance, SMU Cox School of Business

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Education

• Doctor of Philisophy | Finance | Arizona State University
• Master of Management Studies | Finance | BITS Pilani (India)

Selected Publications and White Papers

• Capital Commitment, and Illiquidity in Corporate Bonds, Journal of Finance, 2018, Vol. LXXIII, No. 4, 1615-1661 (with Hank Bessembinder, Stacey Jacobsen, and Bill Maxwell).
• Informed Trading and Price Discovery before Corporate Events, Journal of Financial Economics, 2017, Volume 125, 561-588 (with Shmuel Baruch and Marios Panayides).
• Market Conditions, Fragility and the Economics of Market Making, Journal of Financial Economics, 2016, Volume 121 (2), 327-349 (with Amber Anand).
• Liquidity, Resiliency and Market Quality around Predictable Trades: Theory and Evidence, Journal of Financial Economics, 2016. Volume 121 (1), 142-166. (with Hank Bessembinder, Al Carrion, and Laura Tuttle).

Selected Working Papers

• The Microstructure of Fixed Income Markets: A Survey, 2018 (with Hank Bessembinder and Chester Spatt)
• Do Buyside Institutions Supply Liquidity in Bond Markets? Evidence from Mutual Funds, 2018 (with Amber Anand and Chotibhak Jotikasthira).
• Does Trade Reporting improve Market Quality in an Institutional Market? Evidence from 144A Bond Issues, 2018 (with Stacey Jacobsen)
• Broker Routing, ATS ownership and Execution Quality, 2018 (with Amber Anand, Jonathan Sokobin and Mehrdad Samadi).