About

Jeffrey L. Coles is a Professor of Finance and the Taylor R. Randall Presidential Endowed Chair at the David Eccles School of Business. He is a faculty member in the Department of Finance at the University of Utah. His role involves teaching and research within the field of finance, contributing to the academic community through his position as a distinguished professor and endowed chair.

Research topics

• Economics
• Business
• Political Science
• Financial economics
• Computer Science
• Microeconomics
• Psychology
• Finance
• Management
• Monetary economics
• Econometrics

Selected publications

• Proposed Brief of Current and Retired Practitioners and Professors as Amici Curiae in Support of Reversal in In re Tesla, Inc. Derivative Litigation

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Compensation Peer Choice and Managerial Capital

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Musk's $56 billion: Pay, Incentives, or Rewards?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Do Personal Taxes Drive Unrelated Mergers and Acquisitions?

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

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Survey of boards’ monitoring and advisory roles

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2024-02-06 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  In this paper, we survey the literature on corporate boards, with a specific focus on its primary functions of monitoring and advising the CEO. In particular, we consider how board structure and the individual directors’ characteristics, skill sets, connections, busyness, and incentives affect the board’s ability and willingness to perform these dual roles effectively. We also review how endogeneity between board structure and firm outcomes has been addressed in the literature. While the literature on boards is vast, we pay more attention to studies that have emerged subsequent to Adams, Hermalin, and Weisbach (2010). We conclude with suggestions for future research.

  PublisherDOI

• Survey of Boards’ Monitoring and Advisory Roles

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

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• CEO Risk Exposure Distorts Investment Decisions

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Clawback Provisions and Firm Risk

  The Review of Corporate Finance Studies · 2023-01-31 · 19 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Many of the events that trigger clawback provisions are associated with risky corporate policies and variable performance outcomes. We propose and test the hypothesis that clawback provisions motivate managers to reduce firm risk. Panel ordinary least squares, general method of moments with instrumental variables, and propensity square matching models all indicate that clawback provisions decrease the volatility of stock returns. The channels that connect clawback presence to firm risk include more conservative investment and financial policies. The clawback-induced reduction in risk-taking appears to benefit shareholders on average. The gains from reduced risk-taking are larger for firms with fewer growth options, lower R&D, and prior wrongdoing. (JEL G32, G34, J33, M41, M52, M55)

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• On index investing

  Journal of Financial Economics · 2022 · 109 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Economics
  • Financial economics
  PublisherDOI

• An Empirical Assessment of Empirical Corporate Finance

  Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis · 2022-06-10 · 35 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We empirically evaluate 20 prominent contributions across a broad range of areas in the empirical corporate finance literature. We assemble the necessary data and apply a single, simple econometric method, the connected-groups approach of Abowd et al. to appraise the extent to which prevailing empirical specifications explain variation of the dependent variable, differ in composition of fit arising from various classes of independent variables, and exhibit resistance to omitted variable bias and other endogeneity problems. We assess empirical performance across a wide spectrum of areas in corporate finance and indicate varying research opportunities for empiricists and theorists.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael L. Lemmon

  BlackRock (United States)

  114 shared

• Mark Grinblatt

  Coventry University

  112 shared

• George Pennacchi

  112 shared

• Jeffrey Pontiff

  112 shared

• Sergei Sarkissian

  McGill University

  112 shared

• Warren Bailey

  Fudan University

  112 shared

• Jay R. Ritter

  University of Florida

  112 shared

• Neil D. Pearson

  South College

  112 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Finance

  University of Utah

  2000

• M.S., Finance

  University of Utah

  1995

• B.S., Finance

  University of Utah

  1993