Paul Merage Professor Elected Vice President of the American Finance Association
David Hirshleifer, Finance Professor at UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business, was recently elected as Vice President of the American Finance Association (AFA). He was also assigned to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). As AFA Vice President, Hirshleifer will serve a one-year term on a six-person executive committee, in charge of coordinating nominations for prospective members of the board of directors, managing yearly meetings, guiding the content of The Journal of Finance as well as a range of other responsibilities. It is fitting that Hirshleifer should help handle the content for the journal, as he has held an editorial position with the publication, as well as others, in the past.
Though his AFA term only extends one year, the professor’s NBER membership is permanent. The NBER is a non-profit organization committed to conducting and promoting economic research. Since the organization’s founding in 1920, 26 Nobel Prize Winners have held memberships.
Before his time at UCI, Hirshleifer worked at the University of Michigan, UCLA and Ohio State University. Business and higher education were both bred into Hirshleifer, as his father was an economics professor at UCLA, and his mother was an accounting professor at UCI.
In addition to his new AFA title, Hirshleifer as won multiple accolades for his work. In 1999, the economist and his co-authors received the Smith Breeden Award for outstanding paper from The Journal of Finance. The award-winning article focused on the impact of investor overconfidence and biased self-attribution on stock markets. He was also a recipient of the Paul Merage School of Business Senior Research Faculty Award.
“I’m honored and grateful for this appreciation of my work by scholars in economics, finance and a range of business fields,” Hirshleifer said, “All of this recognition is invigorating…It makes me want to work hard to be worthy of the kind assessments of my colleagues.
