Joel Vanden is an Associate Professor of Finance in the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. Professor Vanden received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, his MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles, and a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Before joining the Smeal College of Business in 2008, Professor Vanden was a finance professor for nine years at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. At the Tuck School, Professor Vanden taught second-year MBA electives in the areas of derivative markets and debt markets. On the research side, Professor Vanden received the Paul Raether Tuck '73 Fellowship for outstanding scholarly achievements. Prior to getting his Ph.D. and joining the Tuck School, Professor Vanden spent several years working in the private sector for Bank of Boston Corporation, SunAmerica Life Insurance Company, Financial Engineering Associates, Chalke Incorporated (asset liability management), and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

Expertise

Professor Vanden's research is focused primarily on the area of asset pricing. Professor Vanden has examined the role that non-redundant options play in explaining equity returns; how option coskewness impacts stock prices; the use of structured debt for solving the asset substitution problem; how information quality affects option values; the role of price manipulation for explaining derivative prices; and how portfolio insurance contributes to volatility regime switching. His research on option coskewness was awarded a research grant from the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance (The Q Group). Currently, Professor Vanden is interested in how imperfect competition affects mutual fund fees and how diversification impacts optimal corporate capital structures.

Education

Ph D, Finance, University of California, Berkeley, 1999

MBA, Finance, The University of California, Los Angeles, 1990

BS, Engineering, The University of Illinois, 1986