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Finance

Glen Vasel Professor of Finance

Director of the Heizer Center for Private Equity and Venture Capital

Portrait of Mitchell A. Petersen, Faculty at the Kellogg School of Management

Mitchell Petersen is the Glen Vasel Professor of Finance. He has published widely in finance and economics. Professor Petersen's research is in the area of empirical corporate finance: the questions of how firms evaluate potential investment projects, how they fund such projects, and how they manage the risk of their assets. His writing focuses on how the cost of information, technology, competition, and taxes affect how firms raise capital and fund their projects. He was awarded the Smith-Breeden Prize for Outstanding Paper in the Journal of Finance in 1995 (for his paper "The Benefits of Lending Relationships: Evidence from Small Business Data") and the Michael Brennan Award for Best Paper in the Review of Financial Studies in 1998 (for his paper "Trade Credit: Theories and Evidence") and 2013 (for his paper "Investment and Capital Constraints: Repatriations Under the American Jobs Creation Act"). He was runner-up for the Brennan Award in 2008 (for his paper "Does the Source of Capital Affect Capital Structure") and 2010 (for his paper "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches").

He has been a member of the editorial board of various journals, including the Journal of Finance, Financial Management, Review of Financial Studies, and the Journal of Financial Intermediation. He is also a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), served on the board of the American Finance Associations, and has been a member of Moody's Academic Advisory and Research Committee.

Professor Petersen was awarded the Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award in 1996, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012 and was voted the Kellogg Professor of the Year in 2000, the Executive MBA Outstanding Professor in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, Kellogg Alumni Professor of the Year in 2010. He was awarded the Richard J Daley Award by the Illinois Venture Capital Association in 2024. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

About Mitchell
Research interests
  • Empirical corporate finance including how firms large and small are financed
  • how financial frictions (including taxes and changes in technology) affect firm's financing
  • risk management
  • and investments.
Teaching interests
  • Corporate finance (valuation
  • capital structure
  • and dividend policy)
  • tax strategy
  • and real options

Capstone Course (STRTX-470-0)

Strategic Financial Management (FINCX-442-0)

Strategic Financial Management examines financial management theory and cases. Students use valuation skills to determine the cost of capital, financing and operating issues faced by the firm.

Managerial Finance II (FINCX-441-0)

Managerial Finance II analyzes corporate financial decisions. Topics include market efficiency, capital structure, dividend and stock repurchase policy, and firms’ use of options and convertible securities.