Kenneth French

Last updated
Kenneth French
Born (1954-03-10) March 10, 1954 (age 70)
Academic career
Field Financial economics
School or
tradition
Neoclassical economics
Contributions Fama–French three-factor model
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Kenneth Ronald "Ken" French (born March 10, 1954) is the Roth Family Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. [1] He has previously been a faculty member at MIT, the Yale School of Management, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. [2]

Contents

He has worked on asset pricing with Eugene Fama. They wrote a series of papers that cast doubt on the validity of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), which posits that a stock's beta alone should explain its average return. These papers describe two factors above and beyond a stock's market beta which can explain differences in stock returns: market capitalization and "value". [3] They also offer evidence that a variety of patterns in average returns, often labeled as "anomalies" in past work, can be explained with their Fama–French three-factor model. [4]

Early life and education

French was born in Franklin, New Hampshire. He obtained a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University in 1975. He then earned a MBA in 1978, an M.S. in 1981, and a Ph.D. in finance in 1983, all from the University of Rochester. In 2005, French became a Rochester Distinguished Scholar.

Career

French has written for the Journal of Finance , the Journal of Financial Economics , the Review of Financial Studies, the American Economic Review , the Journal of Political Economy, and the Journal of Business, French is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, an advisory editor at the Journal of Financial Economics , and a former associate editor of the Journal of Finance , and the Review of Financial Studies.

Professor French was the vice president of the American Finance Association in 2005 and was the organization's president in 2007-8. [5] Also in 2007, Professor French was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).

French is a board member of Dimensional Fund Advisors [6] in Austin, Texas, where he also works as consultant and head of investment policy.

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References

  1. Taha, Ahmed (June 23, 2010). "Luck Is The Key To Success For Most Top Mutual Funds". Forbes . Archived from the original on February 13, 2012.
  2. "Kenneth R. French - Curriculum Vitae". mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu. Retrieved 2017-07-30.
  3. Fama, Eugene F.; French, Kenneth R. (1992). "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns". Journal of Finance. 47 (2): 427–465. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.556.954 . doi:10.2307/2329112. JSTOR   2329112.
  4. Fama, Eugene F.; French, Kenneth R. (1993). "Common Risk Factors in the Returns on Stocks and Bonds". Journal of Financial Economics. 33 (1): 3–56. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.139.5892 . doi:10.1016/0304-405X(93)90023-5.
  5. 2008 AFA Annual Meeting Presidential Address at AFA website
  6. "Kenneth French listing at Dimensional Fund Advisors". Dimensional Fund Advisors. Retrieved February 5, 2015.