About

Professor Isil Erel is the David A. Rismiller Chair in Finance at the Fisher College of Business of the Ohio State University. She holds a PhD in financial economics from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her research spans a variety of areas within corporate finance, with particular emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, and financial institutions such as private debt. Her work has been published in top finance journals including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies. Professor Erel is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Corporate Finance program and a research member at the European Corporate Governance Institute. She is also the Executive Editor of the Review of Corporate Finance Studies. Her academic contributions have been recognized through numerous awards, including the Pace Setters Faculty Research Award, the Distinguished Faculty Award, and the Recognition Award for significant out-of-classroom contributions at the Fisher College of Business. She teaches courses on Financial Institutions at both graduate and undergraduate levels, focusing on the critical role of financial institutions in the global economy and the implications of their actions.

Research topics

• Business
• Finance
• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Machine Learning
• Economics
• Financial system
• Accounting

Selected publications

• How Do Financial Conditions Affect Professional Conduct? Evidence from Opioid Prescriptions

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-09-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Acquiring Supplier Networks: Domestic Mergers for International Supply Chain Resilience

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• How Do Financial Conditions Affect Professional Conduct? Evidence from Opioid Prescriptions

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Discrimination, Disparities, and Diversity in Finance

  UNC Libraries · 2025-05-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In 1964, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, making discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, or national origin illegal. Much has been achieved since then to reduce disparities and discrimination in financial markets and the corporate world, yet some of these practices persist. Why is that? After almost sixty years of “equal-opportunity statements” inserted in job advertisements across America and other countries, are companies preventing discrimination and aiming to foster diversity? And are lenders seriously addressing the disparities in the supply of credit observed between different racial groups?

  PublisherDOI

• Cross-border mergers and acquisitions

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2024-02-06 · 10 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  One of the most consequential events in any firm’s lifetime is a major acquisition. Because of their importance, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been an enormous area of research. However, the vast majority of this research and survey papers summarizing this research have focused on domestic deals. Cross-border ones, however, constitute about 30% of the total number and 37% of the total volume of M&As around the world since the early 1990s. We survey the literature on cross-border M&As, focusing on international factors that can lead firms to acquire a firm in another country. Such factors include differences in economic development, laws, institutions, culture, labor rights, protection of intellectual property, taxes, and corporate governance.

  PublisherDOI

• Evolution of Debt Financing Toward Less-Regulated Financial Intermediaries in the United States

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Common Investors Across the Capital Structure: Private Debt Funds as Dual Holders

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Real Effects of Financial Conditions: How Does Provider Financial Health Affect Opioid Prescription?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Public Sentiment Decomposition and Shareholder Actions 

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Risk-Adjusting the Returns to Private Debt Funds

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-03-01 · 13 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael S. Weisbach

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  323 shared

• Brandon Julio

  232 shared

• Woojin Kim

  Yonsei University

  225 shared

• Reena Aggarwal

  171 shared

• René M. Stulz

  168 shared

• Rohan Williamson

  152 shared

• Jan Bena

  University of British Columbia

  28 shared

• Yeejin Jang

  27 shared

Education

• Ph.D., financial economics

  MIT Sloan School of Management

Awards & honors

• Pace Setters Faculty Research Award (2010)
• Distinguished Faculty Award (2015)
• Recognition Award for significant out-of-classroom contribut…
• Distinguished Referee Award from the Review of Financial Stu…
• Bradford-Osborne Research Award (2023)