Department of Finance

"We are committed to providing a research-oriented atmosphere. We are proud of our time-tested legacy of research collaboration among faculty and PhD students and strive to promote practical business application of faculty research in the classroom."

Bernadette A. Minton Professor and Chair, Department of Finance

Welcome to the Department of Finance, which includes faculty who specialize in financial economics, business law, and insurance. Our over 35 faculty members are internationally known researchers and educators. We provide a vibrant research and teaching atmosphere, characterized by extensive collaboration with a shared goal of conducting leading-edge research and providing students with the skills they need to succeed in the field of finance.

Our tenure-track professors are renowned financial economists. During the 2019-2023 period, the department stood 6th globally in finance research based on the number of publications per capita in the top three finance journals, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, according to Olin Business School Center for Finance and Accounting Research (CFAR) rankings. 

 The Department is among the highest ranked finance departments worldwide in terms of research productivity and academic reputation. For 2020-2023 the Department ranked 12^th worldwide according to the UT Dallas research ranks based on the three leading finance journals. This research effort is facilitated by resources made available through the Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics that is dedicated to promoting high-quality research in financial economics. The Dice Center sponsors the Stephen A. Buser Seminar Series in Financial Economics, showcasing research by colleagues from around the world.

Faculty members regularly serve on the editorial boards of top-tier journals, and several have been elected to leadership positions for all major finance associations: The American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, the European Finance Association, and the Financial Management Association. Members of our faculty have also been program chairs for the major academic conferences of these associations. Five members of our faculty are Research Associates at the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the most prominent research organization in economics and finance in the U.S.

Our tenure-track faculty share their expertise and research insights not only with regulators, policy makers and corporations worldwide but with our undergraduate and graduate students. By demonstrating the practical insights from faculty research, the Department provides students with a variety of courses reflecting the latest research findings and business and market practices.

The department also has clinical faculty members and senior lecturers whose primary focus is teaching. These faculty members teach in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. They are dedicated educators who prepare students to become effective leaders in finance careers in both the private and public sectors. They are consistently engaged in developing leading educational approaches, focusing on action-based learning, and the use of technology in the classroom.

The Department offers courses across a broad range of programs at Fisher and offers service courses to many programs across campus. In total, about 40 percent of all undergraduate students at Fisher select a specialization offered by the Finance Department. We started a new one-year master’s program in the fall of 2011, a new undergraduate Finance Honors Program in the fall of 2018, and two minors (Real Estate and Insurance) in the undergraduate program since 2015.