About

Alexander Butler is a Jesse H. Jones Professor of Finance at Rice University. His research focuses on empirical corporate finance, financial institutions, and financial markets, with particular attention to external financing decisions of firms, governments, and individuals. His work has been published in all the top finance journals, reflecting his significant contributions to the field. Prior to joining the Jones School in 2009, he was on the faculties at the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of South Florida, and Louisiana State University. At Rice, he teaches courses in financial markets and corporate finance across undergraduate, MBA, EMBA, and PhD programs. He holds a PhD in Finance from Indiana University and a bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Economic Analysis from Rice University.

Research topics

• Economics
• Monetary economics
• Finance
• Business
• Macroeconomics
• Statistics
• Demographic economics
• Financial system
• Public economics
• Medicine
• Actuarial science

Selected publications

• Nepo Credit: The Effect of Borrowed Credit Histories

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Isolating the influence of residual stress on tensile behaviour of laser-based powder bed fusion Ti alloys via mechanical stress relief

  Additive Manufacturing Letters · 2025-10-28 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  • Mechanical stress relief (MSR) via slow elastic cyclic loading for PBF-LB material • MSR retains printed metastable microstructure while relieving residual stress • High residual stress embrittles the PBF-LB Ti-6Al-4V • Residual stress has minimal influence on PBF-LB metastable β Ti-7Cr-4Sn • Ti-7Cr-4Sn deformation is affected by {332}<113> twinning and ω iso precipitates This study proposes a mechanical stress relief (MSR) process to reduce the residual stress in PBF-LB materials. It involves progressive, slow cyclic loading in the material’s elastic region. Two Ti alloys, Ti-6Al-4V and Ti-7Cr-4Sn, were chosen as model alloys and underwent MSR accordingly. Results suggest that the proposed MSR helps reduce residual stress, and its effectiveness in relieving residual stress is similar across the two alloys. However, the influence of MSR on the tensile performance is different in the two alloys, which is affected by the initial residual stress level and the material’s deformation mechanism. Ti-6Al-4V possesses high residual stress, with deformation slip being the only deformation mechanism. In contrast, Ti-7Cr-4Sn possesses relatively low residual stress, and a unique deformation mechanism involves {332}<113> twinning and ω iso precipitates. Such a unique deformation mechanism leads to crack initiation driven by twin-confined dislocation pile-up.

  PublisherDOI

• Mortgage Lending in Sundown Towns

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Growth Effects of Opening a Stock Exchange

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Pricing Fiscal Gains and Externalities: The Effects of Shale Booms on Municipal Finance&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Mergers, Market Power, and Operational Efficiency: Evidence from Synthetic Controls

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Are Two-Way Fixed-Effect Difference-In-Differences Estimates Blowing Smoke? A Cautionary Tale from State-Level Bank Branching Deregulation

  Critical Finance Review · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  We illustrate the sensitivity of two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences estimates to innocuous changes in data structure. Using the staggered rollout of state-level bank branching deregulations, three outcome variables are brought to bear on the interventions: personal income growth (a replication), house prices (new to the literature), and per capita cigarette purchases (a falsification test). Estimates are sensitive to panel length, and the data structure creates the false impression of a causal effect of the interventions on all three outcome variables. We contend that any two-way fixed effects regression using this set of interventions is at risk of generating spurious results.

  PublisherDOI

• A Market-based Measure of Climate Risk for Cities

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Financial Breakups

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Aging and public financing costs: Evidence from U.S. municipal bond markets

  Journal of Public Economics · 2022 · 53 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Economics
  • Monetary economics
  • Finance
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Larry Fauver

  University of Tennessee at Knoxville

  56 shared

• Ioannis Spyridopoulos

  American University

  52 shared

• James Weston

  Rice University

  46 shared

• Gustavo Grullon

  Jones College

  36 shared

• Timothy Falcon Crack

  16 shared

• Umit G. Gurun

  12 shared

• Jess Cornaggia

  Pennsylvania State University

  11 shared

• Alan D. Crane

  9 shared

Labs

• FinancePI

Awards & honors

• Jones School’s Award for Scholarship Excellence in 2011 and…