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Master of Business Taxation for Working Professionals (MBT.WP)
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Graduate Certificates
GC in Business Analytics
GC in Financial Analysis + Valuation
GC in Management Studies
GC in Marketing
GC in Optimization + Supply Chain Management
GC in Strategy + Management Consulting
GC in Sustainability + Business
GC in Technology Commercialization
GC in Library and Information Management – Online
Executive Education
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Faculty
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Leventhal School of Accounting (ACCT)
Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (BAEP)
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Marketing (MKT)
Institutes + Centers
Randall R. Kendrick Global Supply Chain Institute
Peter Arkley Institute for Risk Management
VanEck Digital Assets Initiative
Institute for Outlier Research in Business
Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
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Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making
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Finance and Business Economics: Faculty and Research
Faculty and students in the Finance and Business Economics Department examine economic decision-making and the role of markets in the allocation of real and financial resources. Using perspectives from both finance and economics, our faculty illuminates issues in corporate finance, investments, speculative and financial markets, real estate, insurance, banking, industrial organization, taxation, and in the making of related public policies. We place equal emphasis on primary theory and its application to the real problems that practitioners face when doing business.
Full-Time Faculty
Scott Abrams is an Associate Professor of Clinical Finance and Business Economics. He specializes in corporate finance, financial analysis and valuation, and portfolio management. Professor Abrams teaches these subjects in the MBA, MS Finance, and Undergraduate programs. He is a two-time winner of the Golden Apple Teaching Award for the Full-Time MBA Core Program (2016 and 2021). Prior to joining the faculty at USC Marshall, he worked in the corporate finance groups at Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. and is an alumnus of Deloitte. He is a CFA Charterholder and is a licensed CPA.
Kenneth Ahern is an Associate Professor at the Marshall School of Business and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). His research is distinguished by the study of networks to study how economic outcomes spread from one agent to another through interactions, including interactions among industries, individuals, and information sharing. His research has been published in leading finance and economics journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Economics and Statistics, and has been cited in both the popular press and legislative hearings around the world. Before joining USC, Kenneth was on the faculty of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
Rahsan Akbulut is an Associate Professor of Clinical Finance & Business Economics. She is also serving as Academic Director of the MBA.PM Program. Rahsan previously served as Academic Director of the MS Finance Program. Her teaching focuses on Microeconomics. She is also a recipient of the Golden Apple Teaching Award.
Duke Bristow is an expert on corporate finance and corporate governance, particularly in the areas of private equity and director education. He has published papers in economics, engineering, and law journals, and has advised organizations on matters involving corporate governance and director education since 1998. His research and teaching has received support from the National Institutes of Health, the NASDAQ, the four largest international audit firms, and a dozen national law firms. Professor Bristow has served as a director, officer or executive in public, private and not-for-profit organizations.
Ty Callahan is a finance scholar with interests that include the behavior of traders, market liquidity and volume, and mergers and acquisition. He has published papers in the Review of Futures Markets and the Journal of Physical Chemistry. Professor Callahan has served as an ad-hoc referee for the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, Journal of Empirical Finance, and International Review of Finance. Before joining USC, he was on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin.
Odilon Câmara is an economist who specializes in microeconomics and political economy. He studies how individuals strategically use information to persuade decision makers. He also studies the extent to which voters can use re-elections to create political accountability and discipline elected officials. His research has been published in American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Management Science, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Politics, and Games and Economic Behavior. Before receiving his PhD, Professor Camara worked in the banking industry.
Courtesy + Joint Appointments
Richard Green is an expert on housing markets, housing policy, mortgage finance, and urban growth. His research has been published in a wide array of scholarly journals and popular media outlets, and he recently served as president of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association. Professor Green is director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate. Before joining USC, he was a faculty member at George Washington University and the University of Wisconsin, and he served as principal economist and director of financial strategy and policy analysis at Freddie Mac.
Part-Time + Adjunct Faculty
John Ayoob is currently serving as an Adjunct Professor of Finance and Business Economics in the Marshall School at the University of Southern California. He is a 37 year veteran of the commercial real estate industry in Southern California, currently as Executive Vice President at CBRE. John specializes in consulting on the development, leasing, and sale of institutional office, R&D, and mixed-use properties in greater Los Angeles.
Tom Bohlinger is a Real Estate Investor with 45 years of experience in Financing, Investment sales and Development of Office, Hotel, Residential and Industrial properties. He has completed transactions in excess of $6 billion over the course of his career. He retired from JLL in 2021 where he was Managing Director Capital Markets. He headed up office sales in Los Angeles. His previous positions were Executive Vice President CBRE Investment Properties Group, Director of Financial Services Western Region for Jones Lang Wootton USA; CFO of Howard Development Company, and’ Senior Vice President of W. Ross Campbell Company. He started his career as a tax accountant with Ernst & Ernst.
Emeriti Faculty
Robert Bridges specializes in real estate feasibility and urban economics. As a consultant, his clients include investment and development firms, and international and domestic investors. His editorials have been published in the Wall Street Journal, and has been cited by the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio, among other outlets. Professor Bridges received USC's Steven Sample Award for Teaching and Marshall's Award for Community. He is a licensed architect who has received awards from the LA Business Council, the Ray Watt Foundation, the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute and the American Institute of Architects.
Tim Campbell is an expert on financial intermediation. His research has been published in numerous leading journals including the Journal of Finance, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Journal of Financial Intermediation. He served as associate editor of the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Research, and Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. He has been Academic Director of Marshall's highly ranked Executive MBA program since 2003, and previously served as Marshall's Deputy Dean for Programs and Planning.
Henry Cheeseman is an expert of business law, securities law, bankruptcy law, and intellectual property. He has published over twenty books, including Business Law, Contemporary Business and Online Commerce Law, and The Legal Environment of Business and E-Commerce. Professor Cheeseman has received a number of prestigious teaching awards including three Golden Apple Awards and the teaching award from the Mortar Board National Honor Society. He is co-director of the Minor in Business Law program. Before joining USC, Cheeseman practiced law and represented clients in the formation and acquisition of savings banks.
RESEARCH + PUBLICATIONS
We show that household consumption displays excess sensitivity to salient macro-economic news. When the announced local unemployment rate reaches a 12-month maximum, local consumers in that area reduce discretionary spending by 2% relative to consumers in areas with the same macro-economic fundamentals. The consumption of low-income households displays greater excess sensitivity to salience. The decrease in spending is not reversed in subsequent months; instead, negative news persistently reduces future spending for two to four months. Announcements of 12-month unemployment maximums also lead consumers to reduce their credit card repayments by 3.6%.
We use new hand-collected data from corporate filings to study the drivers of corporate capital structure adjustment. Classifying firms by their adjustment frequencies, we reveal previously unknown patterns in their reasons for financing and financial instruments used. Some are consistent with existing theory, while others are understudied. Many leverage changes are outside of the firm's control (e.g., executive option exercise) or incur negligible adjustment costs (e.g., credit line usage). This implies a lower frequency of proactive leverage adjustments than indicated by prior research using accounting data, suggesting that costs of adjustment are higher, or the benefits lower, than previously thought.
FACULTY POSITIONS
See openings and apply HERE.