Utpal Bhattacharya

Utpal Bhattacharya's research is about the dark side of financial markets. He believes, with apologies to Thomas Jefferson, that "the price of capitalism is eternal vigilance."

Professor Bhattacharya is the Executive Editor of Financial Management, and was an Associate Editor of the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Markets. His publications have appeared in top-tier finance journals like the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, The Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and the Journal of Business, top-tier accounting journals like The Accounting Review, and top-tier economics journals like the Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Monetary Economics.

Professor Bhattacharya's research has been featured in full-length stories more than a hundred times in various media across the world, including six times in the Economist. He wrote a satire about the legendary fraudster Madoff in the New York Times . He has been invited to present his research in 236 institutions in 35 countries in 5 continents. He wrote a report for and served as a member of the "Task Force to Modernize Securities Regulation in Canada" in 2006. He and his report were featured in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigative story titled "Who Is Guarding Your Money" on November 23, 2008. On December 2, 2008, legislators in Ontario, Canada, discussed this report. On May 16, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the U.S. invited him to present the findings of his Journal of Finance paper that documents cross-subsidies in mutual fund families. He is now an official whistleblower.

Prof. Bhattacharya is an excellent teacher. He was nominated for the Trustee Teaching Award by Indiana University five years in a row. He won in 2004 and 2008. In 2006, Business Week recognized him as a "prominent faculty." Prof. Bhattacharya teaches in a different country every summer. He has taught at top universities in Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and the USA (Chicago, Duke and MIT.)

His goal is to spread the gospel of honest finance to every corner of the globe.

Education

• Ph.D. Columbia Business School (1984 — 1990)
• MBA Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (1982 — 1984)
• B.Tech Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (1975 — 1980)

Companies

• Executive Editor Financial Management Journal (2016)
• Professor HKUST (2015)
• Associate Professor Indiana University Kelley School of Business (1997 — 2015)
• Visiting Associate Professor University of Chicago Booth School of Business (2010 — 2011)
• Visiting Associate Professor MIT Sloan School of Management (2003 — 2004)
• Visiting Assistant Professor Fuqua School of Business (1993 — 1994)
• Ph.D. Student Columbia Business School (1984 — 1990)

Areas of Expertise

• Market Manipulation, Insider Trading, Earnings Management, Household Finance, Behavioral Biases

Selected Papers and Publications

• “Do Superstitious Traders Lose Money?” (with Wei-Yu Kuo, Tse-Chun Lin and Jing Zhao), 2017, Management Science, forthcoming. Was a feature story in the Economist (8/30/2014)
• “What Affects Innovation More: Policy or Policy Uncertainty?” (with Po-Hsuan Hsu, Xuan Tian and Yan Xu), 2017, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 52, 1869-1901. Was a feature story in Washington Post (2/19/2014)
• “Conflicting Family Values in Mutual Fund Families” (with Jung Hoon Lee and Veronika Krepely Pool), 2013, Journal of Finance 68, 173-200.
• “Upset the $11 trillion dollar industry” (ICI Viewpoints (4/27/12)); presented my findings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (5/16/12)
• “Is Unbiased Financial Advice to Retail Investors Sufficient? Answers from a Large Field Study” (with Andreas Hackethal, Simon Kaesler, Benjamin Loos and Steffen Meyer), 2012, The Review of Financial Studies 25, 975-1032. Was the lead article
• “Do They Do It For The Money?” (with Cassandra Marshall), 2012, Journal of Corporate Finance 18, 92-104. Was a feature story in the Economist (10/27/11), New York Times (6/9/11 and 4/8/09), and in Bloomberg (4/9/09)
• “When No Law is Better than a Good Law?” (with Hazem Daouk), 2009, Review of Finance 13, 577-627. Was the lead article
• “The World Price of Earnings Opacity (with Hazem Daouk and Michael Welker), 2003, The Accounting Review 78, 641-678. Was a feature story in Business Week (7/22/02) and Money Magazine (9/1/02)
• “The World Price of Insider Trading” (with H. Daouk), 2002, Journal of Finance 57, 75-108.
• Nominated for the 2002 Smith Breeden Award in the Journal of Finance. Was a feature story in the Economist (1/22/00) and in the Financial Times (4/12/01)
• “Capital Markets and the Evolution of Family Businesses” (with B. Ravikumar), 2001, Journal of Business 74, 187-220. Was the lead article
• “When an Event is Not an Event: The Curious Case of an Emerging Market” (with Hazem Daouk, Brian Jorgenson and Carl-Heinrich Kehr), 2000, Journal of Financial Economics 55, 69-101. Was a feature story in Barron’s (2/8/99)