Best Paper Awards

Best Paper Awards

Every year since 2011, the Finance Theory Group awards prizes for the best theory papers on the finance job market. A committee appointed by the Board is tasked with evaluating all job market papers nominated by current FTG members and choosing the winning authors, who are then invited to join the FTG. Below is the list of past award winners:

    2023

  • Co-Winner of the First Prize: "The Market for Attention" by Daniel Chen (Stanford GSB going to Princeton)
  • Co-Winner of the First Prize: "How Competition Shapes Information in Auctions" by Agathe Pernoud (Stanford going to Chicago Booth)
  • 2022

  • First Prize: "Raising Capital from Investor Syndicates with Strategic Communication" by Dan Luo (Stanford GSB, joining Chinese University of Hong Kong after a postdoc at the Fama-Miller Center at the University of Chicago)
  • Runner up: "Optimal Managerial Authority" by Joanne Juan Chen (LSE, joining Boston University)
  • 2021

  • First Prize: "Competing with Security Design" by Yue Yuan (LSE, joining Tsinghua University)
  • Runner up: "Financing Breakthroughs under Failure Risk" by Simon Mayer (Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tinbergen Institute, joining HEC Paris after a postdoc at the Fama-Miller Center at the University of Chicago)
  • 2020

  • Co-Winner of the First Prize: "Multinational Banks and Financial Stability" by Christopher Clayton (Harvard University, joining Yale SOM) and Andreas Schaab
  • Co-Winner of the First Prize: "The Political Economy of Prudential Regulation" by Magdalena Rola-Janicka (University of Amsterdam, joining Tilberg University)
  • 2019

  • First Prize: “Dynamic Information Acquisition and Asset Prices” by Brandon Han (LSE, joining University of Maryland)
  • Runner up: “Capital Flows in the Financial System and the Supply of Credit” by Lin Shen (Wharton, joining INSEAD)
  • 2018

  • First Prize: "Too Much Skin in the Game" by Deeksha Gupta (Wharton, joining Carnegie Mellon University)
  • Runner up: “Intermediation in the Inter-bank lending market” by Yiming Ma (Stanford, joining Columbia Business School)
  • 2017

  • Co-Winner of First Prize: "Mechanism Design with Aftermarkets: Cutoff Mechanisms" by Piotr Dworczak (Stanford University, joining Northwestern University)
  • Co-Winner of First Prize: "Core-Periphery Trading Networks" by Chaojun Wang (Stanford University, joining the Wharton School)
  • 2016

  • First Prize: "A Dynamic Theory of Mutual Fund Runs and Liquidity Management" by Yao Zeng (Harvard University, joining the University of Washington)
  • Runner Up: "Network Hazard and Bailouts" by Selman Erol (University of Pennsylvania, joining Carnegie Mellon University)
  • 2015

  • First Prize: "Dynamic Adverse Selection: Time-Varying Market Conditions and Endogenous Entry" by Pavel Zryumov (Stanford University, joining the Wharton School)
  • Runner Up: "Moral Hazard and the Optimality of Debt" by Benjamin Hébert (Harvard University, joining Stanford University)
  • 2014

  • First Prize: "Intermediation and Voluntary Exposure to Counterparty Risk" by Maryam Farboodi (University of Chicago, joining Princeton University)
  • Runner Up (tie): "Auctions of Real Options" by Will Cong (Stanford University, joining the University of Chicago), and "Information Acquisition vs. Liquidity in Financial Markets" by Victoria Vanasco (UC Berkeley, joining Stanford University)
  • 2013

  • First Prize: "Contracting Timely Delivery with Hard to Verify Quality" by Felipe Varas (Stanford University, joining Duke University)
  • Runner Up: "Uncertainty Shocks and Balance Sheet Recessions" by Sebastian Di Tella (MIT, joining Stanford University)
  • 2012

  • First Prize: "Optimality of Securitized Debt with Endogenous and Flexible Information Acquisition" by Ming Yang (Princeton University, joining Duke University)
  • Runner Up: "Financial Intermediation, International Risk Sharing, and Reserve Currencies” by Matteo Maggiori (UC Berkeley, joining NYU) Financed by Itay Goldstein, Gustavo Manso, Uday Rajan, Adriano Rampini, and Ilya Strebulaev
  • 2011

  • Runner Up: "Sticky Incentives and Dynamic Agency: Optimal Contracting with Perks and Shirking" by John Zhu (UC Berkeley, joining the Wharton School)
  • First Prize: "Asymmetric Information in Financial Markets: Anything Goes" by Bradyn Breon-Drish (UC Berkeley, joining Stanford University)