About

Mark Jansen is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah. His research and teaching focus on private equity, entrepreneurial finance, and household finance. Prior to joining the University of Utah, he served as Managing Director at Holland Park Capital, a private equity firm, and was a member of the Young President’s Organization. His earlier professional experience includes work in management consulting and the chemical industry. Dr. Jansen holds a Ph.D. and Master's in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.B.A. from London Business School, and dual Bachelor’s degrees in Management Science and Mechanical Engineering from MIT.

Research topics

• Business
• Computer Science
• Monetary economics
• Finance
• Economics
• Microeconomics
• Industrial organization
• Actuarial science
• Accounting
• Medicine
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• Dealer Financing in the Subprime Auto Market: Markups and Implicit Subsidies

  Management Science · 2025-05-14 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Do dealers use their financing discretion to charge higher interest rate markups to high-risk customers? We use unique transaction-level data to examine finance and vehicle profits in the subprime auto market with three main results. First, financing subprime customers is costly for dealerships because of loan discounts that are only partially offset by proceeds from interest rate markups. Second, financing is costliest to dealers for deep subprime customers with low credit scores and low incomes. Third, instead of offsetting financing costs, vehicle markups are lowest for deep subprime customers. Finance margins and vehicle markups are also positively correlated more generally. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.04086 .

  PublisherDOI

• Borrowers in the Shadows: The Promise and Pitfalls of Alternative Credit Data

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Consequences of Unfunded Capital Commitments: Evidence from University Endowments

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Nonpecuniary Benefits: Evidence from the Location of Private Company Sales

  The Review of Corporate Finance Studies · 2024-04-23 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st author

  Abstract This paper investigates whether acquisition prices reflect a specific set of nonpecuniary benefits preferred by entrepreneurs: the quality of life (QOL) associated with the business location. Using data on private firm acquisitions, we find that target firms in high-QOL cities sell for a 14% to 20% premium. Traditional financial factors do not explain this premium, which dissipates when the buyer is unlikely to have preferences for high-QOL locations. Using wage-to-housing cost differentials to decompose local amenities and data on migration patterns, we find that QOL amenities have a greater impact on entrepreneurs’ location decisions relative to wage workers. (JEL G02, G32, G34, J32, L26, R39) Received: 27 February 2022; Editorial decision: 29 January 2024 Editor: Camelia Kuhnen Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Contracting Institutions and Acquisition Proceeds from Private Firms: A Comparison of Seller Debt and Earnouts

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

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Short-Term Lending and Usury Limits: Consumer Impact and Market Adaptation

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Rise of the Machines: The Impact of Automated Underwriting

  Management Science · 2024 · 38 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Business
  • Computer Science

  Using a randomized experiment in auto lending, we find that algorithmic underwriting outperforms the human underwriting process, resulting in 10.2% higher loan profits and 6.8% lower default rates. The human and machine underwriters show similar performance for low-risk, less complex loans. However, the performance of human underwritten loans largely declines for riskier and more complex loans, whereas the machine performance stays relatively stable across various risk dimensions and loan characteristics. The performance difference is more pronounced at underwriting thresholds with a high potential for agency conflict. These results are consistent with algorithmic underwriting mitigating agency conflicts and humans’ limited capacity for analyzing complex problems. This paper was accepted by Will Cong, finance. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.4986 .

  PublisherDOI

• Seller Debt in Acquisitions of Private Firms: A Security Design Approach

  Review of Financial Studies · 2023-08-12 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We propose a security design model in which a potential acquirer approaches a firm with a value-add plan. The target has a single owner, who possesses private information: he alone knows whether his firm is compatible with the plan. The owner agrees that the acquirer will add value but believes that the value-add will not be as much as what the acquirer expects. Although the acquirer can choose any monotone limited liability security to offer along with cash, we show that, under general conditions, any security that is employed always takes the form of nonrecourse debt provided by the seller. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online

  PublisherDOI

• Product Sales Incentive Spillovers to the Lending Market: Evidence from Subprime Auto Loan Defaults

  Management Science · 2023-10-18 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This paper shows how convex incentives in vertical contracts between manufacturers and retailers can induce sales behavior with costs to consumers. We examine this problem in the automotive sector, where manufacturers commonly motivate new vehicle sales through dealer incentive programs with large discrete bonuses determined by monthly sales targets. Using subprime car loans from over 3,500 dealerships, we document high default rates on new car loans originated at the end of the month—the period when dealerships attempt to secure target-based bonuses by intensifying efforts to sell new cars. We provide evidence consistent with the observed higher default rates resulting from customers purchasing new vehicles at month end. New car purchases stretch borrower budgets and expose borrowers to rapid depreciation, which consigns the borrower with negative equity through much of the loan term. Our results imply that the quartile of customers with the highest payment-to-income ratio see default rates increase from 13.6% to 19.7% on the last day of the month. Although consumers bear high costs from increased defaults, we find no evidence that lenders that purchase the loans are hurt by the default increase. Our results demonstrate how the behaviors induced by convex incentive schemes for sales are borne by customers. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, business strategy. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4935 .

  PublisherDOI

• Collateral Damage: Human and Physical Capital in Consumer Lending

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Thomas H. Noe

  11 shared

• Ludovic Phalippou

  5 shared

• Hieu Nguyen

  4 shared

• Adam Winegar

  BI Norwegian Business School

  4 shared

• Mark J. Garmaise

  3 shared

• Jason A. Snyder

  Washington University in St. Louis

  3 shared

• Constantine Yannelis

  3 shared

• Fabian Nagel

  University of Chicago

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Finance

  University of Utah

  2015

• M.S., Finance

  University of Utah

  2011

• B.S., Finance

  University of Utah

  2009