Todd T Milbourn
Hubert C. and Dorothy R. Moog Professor of Finance
Olin Business School
Washington University in St. Louis
(Alpamayo 2018: RIP mountaineers E.L., J.F., and P.B. My thoughts and prayers will always remain with
you, your loved ones, and especially my dear friend, M….)
(January 2018 Thought
Leadership Talk and climbing a frozen waterfall just outside of Ouray, Colorado
in February 2018, with my buddy, David B)
(view
from the summit ridge of the 6,000-meter peak Artesonraju
in Peru, July 2017)
(above
pictures: old trips with my children to
Cabo and Colorado)
(above
picture: standing by a monster crevasse
and waving on the descent from the summit of Mt. Rainier)
(above
picture: doing something a little more
on the professional side for CNBC)
CV: Todd Milbourn’s CV
E-Mail: milbourn@wustl.edu
Google
Scholar Page
Ph.D.
in Finance, December 1995, Indiana University at
Bloomington, School of Business, Bloomington, Indiana
B.A.
in Economics, Mathematics, and Finance, May 1991, Augustana College,
Rock Island, Illinois
Academic Experience:
Hubert
C. and Dorothy R. Moog Professor of Finance, Washington University in St. Louis,
2010-present
Professor
of Finance, Washington University in St.
Louis, 2007-2010
Associate
Professor of Finance (with tenure), Washington
University in St. Louis, 2003-2007
Visiting
Associate Professor of Finance, University
of Chicago, Spring Quarter 2005
Assistant
Professor of Finance, Washington
University in St. Louis, 2000-2003
Visiting
Assistant Professor of Finance, University
of Chicago, 1999-2000
Assistant
Professor of Finance, London Business School,
1996-1999
University
Administrative Experience:
Deputy
Dean, OIin
Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, 2022-2023
Vice
Dean of Faculty & Research, OIin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis,
2017-2022
Senior
Associate Dean of Programs, OIin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis,
2016-2017
Senior
Associate Dean of Faculty & Research, OIin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis,
2013-2017
Finance
Area Coordinator (~ Department Chair), OIin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis,
2005-2013
Academic
Director, MS in
Finance Program Corporate Finance
& Investments Track, OIin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis,
2011-2013
Academic
Director, Corporate Finance &
Investments MBA Platform, OIin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis,
2010-2014
Academic
Director, MS in
Finance Program, OIin
Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, 2005-2008
Had responsibility for the design,
development, and implementation of this new full-time MS in Finance Program.
Board Experience:
Independent
Director, The Xanthus Fund,
Oppenheimer Asset Management, 2015-present
·
Chairman
of the Audit Committee for this long-short hedge fund
Independent
Director, Constellation of Mountain Crest
Acquisition Corporation SPACS (I – V), 2020-present
·
Chairman
of the Audit Committee for all five
·
MC
I, II and III have de-SPACed as of 2023
Independent
Director, The Chartist Fund, Oppenheimer Asset
Management, 2011-2013
·
Chairman
of the Audit Committee
Member,
Standard & Poor’s Academic Council, 2004-present
Board
Member, St. Louis Military Officer
Support Foundation, 2008-2012
Research Interests:
Corporate finance, executive compensation, credit
ratings, and managerial career concerns
Research and Honorary
Appointments:
Fellow,
Center for Financial
Research, FDIC, 2004-2005
Marcile and James Reid Teaching Chair, Washington University in St. Louis,
2002-2003
Working Papers:
1. “Does the Religious Affiliation of
Directors’ Tertiary Institutions Matter for the Outcomes of their Active Board
Oversight?”, (joint with Kingsley Wabara),
July 2023 (submitted first round at RFS).
2. “Dividend yield, dividend payers and
cross-sectional return prediction”, (joint with Seong
Jin Ahn, Charles G. Ham,
and Zachary R. Kaplan), working paper, July 2023.
3. “Corporate Investment Under the Cloud of
Litigation” (joint
with Benjamin Bennett, Todd Milbourn, and Zexi Wang),
2022.
4. “The
Role of Stock Price Informativeness in Compensation
Complexity”, joint with Benjamin Bennett, Gerald Garvey, and Zexi Wang), 2022.
5. “What Will It Do For My EPS? A Straightforward But Powerful Motive for
Mergers”, (joint with Thomas Bates, Gerald T. Garvey, Anushri
Jain, and James Linck), 2022.
- “How Well Do Investors Process
(More Subtle) Information? The Case of Employee Stock Options”, (joint
with Jian Cai and Gerald Garvey), 2008 (permanent
working paper).
- “The Optimal and Actual Use of
Economic Value Added in Incentive Compensation”, (joint with Gerald
Garvey), 2005 (permanent working paper)
Publications:
1. “Product Market Peers and Relative Performance
Evaluation”, (joint with Sudarshan Jayaraman and Hojun Seo), The Accounting Review, 96(4), 341-366,
2021.
2. “Targets that Work”, (joint with John
Horn and Radhakrishnan Gopalan),
Harvard Business Review,
September-October, Volume 95, Number 5, pp. 102 – 107, 2017.
3. “Compensation Goals and Firm
Performance”, (joint with Benjamin Bennett, J. Carr Bettis ,
and Radhakrishnan Gopalan),
Journal of Financial Economics
124-2, 307-330, May 2017.
·
Winner
of the 2016 "Olin Award: Recognizing Research that Transforms
Business"
4. “Which Skills Matter in the Market for
CEOs? Evidence from Pay for CEO Credentials” (joint with Antonio Falato and Dan Li), Management
Science 61-12, December 2015.
5. “The Effect of Auditor Expertise on Executive
Compensation”, (joint with Sudarshan Jayaraman), The
Accounting Review 90-1, February 2015.
6. “Duration of Executive Compensation”,
(joint with Radhakrishnan Gopalan,
Fenghua Song, and Anjan V. Thakor), Journal of
Finance 59-6, 2014
·
Winner
of the 2011 "Olin Award: Recognizing Research that Transforms
Business" – video summary
·
St. Louis Business Journal article in
regards to the award
·
St. Louis Post-Dispatch article related
to our work
- “CEO Compensation and Corporate
Risk: Evidence from a Natural Experiment”, (joint with Todd A. Gormely and David A. Matsa),
Journal
of Accounting and Economics 56, 79-101, December 2013.
·
Executive
Summary from Knowledge@Wharton: “The Making of a Daredevil CEO: Why
Stock Options Lead to More Risk Taking”
- “The Role of Stock Liquidity in
Executive Compensation”, (joint with Sudarshan Jayaraman), The Accounting Review 87-2, 537-564, March 2012.
- “How did increased competition
affect credit ratings?”, (joint with Bo Becker), Journal
of Financial Economics (lead article) 101-3, 493-514, September 2011.
NBER Working Paper No. w16404
FT Link and discussion: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/10/06/361846/rating-agency-multiplicity/
Presented at the 2010 NBER
Workshop on Credit Rating Agencies
My coauthor, Bo Becker, gave
an interesting interview about this paper here.
…researchers find evidence that
competition leads to more issuer-friendly and less informative ratings
- “Compensation and Risk Incentives in
Banking and Finance”, (joint with Jian Cai and Kent Cherny),
in Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland,
September 14, 2010.
- “Bank Executive Pay”, (joint with
Jian Cai) In Economic Trends at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland,
July 30, 2010.
- “Strategic Flexibility and the
Optimality of Pay for Sector Performance”, (joint with Radhakrishnan
Gopalan and Fenghua
Song), Review of Financial Studies 23-5, 2060-2098, 2010.
Winner of
Citigroup Award for the best paper at the 2009 Summer Research Conference
hosted by The Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF) at the Indian School of
Business (ISB)
- “Asymmetric Benchmarking in
Compensation: Executives are Rewarded for Good Luck But
Not Penalized for Bad”,
(joint with Gerald Garvey), Journal of Financial Economics
82-1, 197-226, October 2006.
- “Credit Ratings as Coordination
Mechanisms”, (joint with Arnoud Boot and Anjolein Schmeits), Review of Financial Studies
19-1, 81-118, Spring 2006.
- "Sunflower Management and
Capital Budgeting", (joint with Arnoud Boot
and Anjan Thakor) Journal
of Business 78-2,
501-527, (March) 2005.
- “Incentive Compensation When
Executives Can Hedge the Market:
Evidence of Relative Performance Evaluation in the Cross-Section”,
(joint with Gerald Garvey), Journal of Finance 58-4,
1557-1582, August 2003.
- "CEO Reputation and
Stock-Based Compensation", Journal of Financial Economics
68-2, 233-262, 2003.
- "Managerial Career Concerns
and Investments in Information", (joint with Richard Shockley and Anjan Thakor), Rand
Journal of Economics 32-2, 334-351, 2001.
- “EVA versus Earnings: Does it Matter Which
is More Highly Correlated with Stock Returns”, (joint with Gerald Garvey),
Journal of Accounting Research 38, 209-245, 2000.
- “Regulation and the Evolution of
the Financial Services Industry”, (joint with Arnoud Boot and Silva Dezelan), in Topics in Corporate Finance: Perspectives on the Regulation of the
Financial Services Industry, ed. by Arnoud
Boot and Jeroen Ligterink,
Amsterdam Center for Corporate Finance Number 2, 25-41, 2000.
- “The Theory of Security Design”,
(joint with Arnoud W.A. Boot and Anjan V. Thakor), in The Handbook of Equity Derivatives,
Second Edition, ed. by Jack Francis, William Toy and J. Gregg Whittaker,
Irwin Professional Publishers665-687 (appeared in First Edition as well),
2000.
- “Megamergers and Expanded
Scope: Theories of Bank Size and
Activity Diversity”, (joint with Arnoud Boot and
Anjan Thakor), Journal
of Banking and Finance 23 (lead
article), 195-214, 1999.
- “Regulatory Distortions in a
Competitive Financial Services Industry”, (joint with Arnoud
Boot and Silva Dezelan), Journal of
Financial Services Research 16-2/3, 249-259, 1999.
- “The Search for the Best Financial
Performance Measure: Yes, Basics
are Better – If You Understand Them”, (joint with
Jeff Bacidore, John Boquist,
and Anjan V. Thakor), Financial
Analysts Journal, 1999.
- “The Winner-Takes-All: An Alternative View of CEO Incentives”
(comment on three papers), in Executive Compensation and Shareholder
Value: Theory and Evidence,
ed. by Jennifer Carpenter and David Yermack,
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 47-52, 1999.
- “How Do You Win the Capital
Allocation Game?”, (joint with John Boquist and Anjan Thakor), Sloan Management Review 39-2,
1998, 59-71.
- “Comment on Colin Mayer’s
‘Financial Systems and Corporate Governance’ ”, Journal of
Institutional and Theoretical Economics 154-1, pp. 170-176, 1998.
- “EVA’s Charm as a Performance
Measure”, in Mastering Finance, ed. by George Bickerstaffe, FT Pitman Publishing, 133-138, 1998.
- “The Search for the Best Financial
Performance Measure”, (joint with Jeff Bacidore,
John Boquist, and Anjan
V. Thakor), Financial Analysts Journal (lead article), May-June
1997, 11-20.
- “EVA and Total Quality Management”,
(joint with Jeff Bacidore, John Boquist, and Anjan Thakor), Journal of Applied Corporate Finance,
Summer 1997, 81-89.
Books:
·
The Value Sphere: The Corporate Executive’s Handbook for
Creating & Retaining Shareholder Wealth,
4th edition, (written jointly with John A. Boquist
and Anjan V. Thakor), World Scientific Publishing, 2009
Selected Expert
Witness and Consulting Experience:
·
Serve
as an expert witness work for cases related to capital markets, asset
management, executive compensation, SPACs, fair rates of return, and financial damages
(clients served include non-financial and financial companies and the US
Department of Justice)
·
Serve
as an independent director and chair of the audit committee of a large,
long-short, registered hedge fund
·
Serve
as an independent director and chair of the audit committees for a
constellation of five SPACs
·
Facilitating
the redesign of corporate resource allocation practices and policies within
non-financial firms
·
Advise
on issues related to valuation and capital structure policies for both investment
banks and non-financial firms
·
Served
on an academic advisory board to a major credit rating agency
Selected Executive
Education Experience:
·
“Financial
Management and Goal Alignment” for Bunge Limited
·
“Strategic
Financial Customer Integration Program” for Nestlé Purina Pet Care
·
“Finance
and Strategy in the Quest for the Summit” for Centene Corporation
·
“Evaluating
Projects in Practice – Growing in a Value-Creating Manner” for Metal Service
Center Institute (MSCI)
·
“Resource
Allocation and Shareholder Value” for MSCI
·
“Financial
Evaluation of Strategies and Decisions” for MSCI
·
“Finance
for the Non-Financial Manager” (delivered in open-enrolment programs, along
with various customized versions for MSCI, Bunge Ltd, Black & Veatch, Sara
Lee, TALX, Bell-Bowe-Howell, and Essex Industries)
·
“Resource
Allocation in Practice” (delivered in open-enrolment programs, along with
customized versions for Sara Lee, Bunge Ltd, Black & Veatch, Whirlpool
Corporation, and MSCI)
·
“Using
Numerical Reasoning To Solve Problems” (delivered to Tyson Foods)
·
Delivered
ten-week “Financial Core” class to the writers of the Lex Group and Senior
Editors of the Financial Times