Biography

Professor Shanken has research interests primarily in the investment/capital markets side of finance with emphasis on the application of sophisticated econometric methods. His teaching interests include capital budgeting, managerial finance, and investment management. Prior to joining Emory University in the summer of 2002, he was Frontier Corporation Professor of Finance at the University of Rochester. Professor Shanken began his teaching career at the University of California, Berkeley and has also been a visiting professor at Yale University. Before teaching, he spent time as a systems analyst at Sandia Laboratories in New Mexico working on security for nuclear plants.

Education

  • PhD
    Carnegie-Mellon University
    1983
  • MS
    Carnegie-Mellon University
    1980
  • MA
    Cornell University
    1976
  • BS
    SUNY at Stony Brook
    1973

In the News

  • A (Very) Long History of Real Interest Rates

    December 25, 2016
    Investment.com
    In 2000, Jay Shanken and S.P. Kothari wrote a paper called “Asset Allocation with Conventional and Indexed Bonds.” To make this paper possible, they had to back-fill returns from hypothetical inflation-linked bonds. Their method was better than the method mentioned above, but still produced an unreasonably volatile stream. The chart below shows a series, in red, that is derived from their series of hypothetical annual real returns on 5-year inflation-indexed bonds, and backing into the real yields implied by those returns. I have narrowed the historical range to focus better on the range of dates in the Shanken/Kothari paper.

  • A Look Inside a Hedge Fund's Black-Box Trading

    July 14, 2010
    The Wall Street Journal
    A hedge fund started by four young math wizards is using a branch of artificial intelligence, called "computer learning," to make investment decisions. Rebellion Research's four, 20-something-year-old partners explain how their computer program "thinks" up their strategy.