University of Bath School of Management

Mike Willis

Director of Studies, MSc Finance programmes, Teaching Fellow
Key Research Interests: Working Capital management, Corporate Growth and Economic value creation within organisations.

My research interests include the limitations and opportunities of working capital management with emphasis on trade credit; namely the neglect and lack of focus thereon, and the resultant impact on performance, liquidity, balance sheet structure and valuation of the organisation. Other areas of interest are the integrational limitations when undertaking corporate activity, the impacts of firm valuation post corporate actions and the real value creation anomaly.
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Professor Ania Zalewska

Professor of Finance
Key research interests: International finance; emerging economies

My research topics include: corporate finance - privatisation, valuation and performance of initial public offerings, modelling and estimation of market risk. Corporate governance - managerial incentives, capital and ownership structure, regulation. Emerging markets- development, integration and efficiency. Pension funds - impact of pension reforms on the development of financial markets, pension reforms in transition economies.
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Dr XiaoHua Chen

Lecturer in Finance
Key Research Interests: Asset Pricing.  Financial market, Investment strategy.  Applied Econometrics.

My research interests are in the fields of financial economics, empirical finance and applied econometrics. Current topics of interest include: time-varying asset returns over business cycles, multifactor asset pricing models, impact of information disclosure on pricing behaviour in financial markets, co-movement of asset returns at firm- and aggregate-level, investment strategy against time horizon, and behavioural finance. Chen's full profile

Dr Andreas Krause

Lecturer in Finance
Key Research Interests: Market microstructure, Agent-based computational economics, Market design, Network formation

My current research combines market microstructure theory and agent-based computational economics with the aim of developing models that are able to replicate realistic time series properties of financial assets. By combining approaches developed in agent-based computational economics, in particular zero-intelligence trading, with market microstructure elements, I am also investigating the implications for the optimal design of trading rules in financial markets. As part of the decision-making process in financial markets furthermore explore the formation and evolution of social networks and how decision-making in such networks affects trading decisions.
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Professor John Forker

Professor of Accounting
Key Research Interests:  Financial accounting and reporting; Earnings quality; Equity pricing; Corporate governance; NHS Trusts

My research interests focus on the contribution of financial reporting, auditing and governance to performance evaluation and accountability in private and public sector organizations and on the role of accounting information in equity pricing.   

Research topics include: the model of the reporting entity as applied in accounting for employee share schemes, non-reciprocal transfers and NHS Trusts; earnings management and corporate governance quality in companies; accruals quality, auditor type and the achievement of performance targets in NHS Trusts; CEO pay, gender performance and governance in NHS Trusts; earnings quality and investors' perceptions of auditor quality in the US around the Enron scandal; comparing the relative information content of value-based performance measures compared to conventional profit measures for US and UK companies and modeling the relationship between share prices and analysts’ forecasts to measure the equity premium and the impact of sentiment.
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Professor Ian Tonks

Professor of Finance
Key research interests: Pensions, Directors Trading

My research focuses on pension economics; fund manager performance; directors’ trading; market microstructure; and the new issue market. I have published in leading finance and economics journals, and teach across all areas of financial economics including asset pricing, corporate finance, market efficiency and performance measurement. From 2003-2008 I was director of Xfi Centre or Finance and Investment at the University of Exeter, and was responsible for all its teaching and research programmes. I am a consultant to the Financial Markets Group, and the Centre for Market and Public Organisation. I have previously held positions at the University of Bristol, the London School of Economics and have held visiting positions at: Bank of England (Senior Houblon-Norman Fellow); Financial Services Authority (ESRC Business Fellowship); University of British Columbia, Canada; Solvay Business School, Bruxelles; City University Business School; Ecole Nationale Des Ponts et Chaussees, Paris; and LSE Summer Schools at Moscow and St Petersberg. I have acted as a consultant to a number of commercial and regulatory organisations including the London Stock Exchange, the Competition Commission, and the Financial Services Authority, and have advised the Department of Work and Pensions, the Bank of England, and the House of Commons Select Committee on issues in pensions.
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Dr Philip Cooper

Senior Lecturer in Financial Accounting and Director of the CIMA Centre of Excellence
Key Research Interests: Accounting, Sustainability, Education

My research is concerned with environmental valuation and accounting. I am interested in extended perspectives on the accounting entity, considering aggregates such as economic sectors and countries, as well as the corporate entity and its component activities. I am currently investigating the measurement of social and economic forces that contribute to particular pressures on the marine environment, and how these can be used in scenario analysis, as part of a pan-European EC Framework VI project.
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Dr Richard Fairchild

Lecturer in Strategic Corporate Finance
Key Research Interests: Behavioural Corporate Finance; Venture Capital Contracting and Performance; Applications of Game-theoretic tools to Corporate Finance Decision-Making; the effects of agency problems and asymmetric information on corporate capital structure.

My current research interests include: application of game theoretical tools to strategic corporate finance; capital structure and the effects of agency problems, signalling, and product market competition; venture capitalism, bargaining, and the incorporation of behavioural effects into the double-sided moral hazard problem affecting financial contracts and performance; social entrepreneurship; behavioural finance. I have recently become associate member of the Aston Centre for Research in Experimental Finance (ACREF) with whom I plan future collaborative research.
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Dr Julie Salaber

Lecturer in Finance
Key research interests: Empirical asset pricing, sin stocks, behavioural finance, socially responsible investment.

My research topics include: asset pricing (sin stocks, business cycles, socially responsible investment, religious preferences, litigation), addictive consumption (tobacco, alcohol, gambling), behavioural finance (cognitive biases, behavioural asset pricing), corporate social responsiblity.

Margaret Greenwood

Lecturer in Accounting
Key Research Interests:  Accounting, financial management and governance in the NHS

The main theme of my research is the applicability of private sector models of governance, accountability and financial reporting in a public sector setting. My focus is the acute hospital sector which, because of the unique characteristics of the NHS setting and the co-existence of both public and private sector organizational forms, offers the potential for research findings to be of relevance in both the wider public and private sector environments. 

Research topics include; accruals quality, auditor type and achievement of performance targets; board composition, CEO pay, gender and organizational performance; the impact of performance management systems on financial performance and accountability; the model of the reporting entity; earnings management, financial reporting quality, and governance.
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Yun Shen

Lecturer in Accounting
Key Research Interests: Market-based accounting research, Corporate valuation models, Value relevance studies, Scale and scale effects

My current research focuses on estimation efficiency  of accounting-based, cross-sectional, corporate valuation models, including scale and scale effects; value relevance of research and development expenditures; relationship between accounting disclosures and stock market returns using portfolio analysis.
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