Elisabeth Kempf

Elisabeth Kempf is the Jaime and Raquel Gilinski Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where she teaches Finance 1 to MBA students. She holds academic affiliations with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) as a Faculty Research Fellow and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) as a Research Affiliate. Her research focuses on political economy and empirical corporate finance, examining topics like political polarization in finance, conflicts of interest in information production, and corporate governance. Her work has been widely cited in major media outlets and published in top journals such as the Journal of Finance and Review of Financial Studies. She has received prestigious awards including the Jensen Prize and BlackRock Best Paper Award.

Professor Kempf earned a Ph.D. in Finance from Tilburg University, an M.Sc. from HEC Paris, and a B.Sc. from the University of Mannheim. Prior to academia, she worked as an analyst at Deutsche Bank and held faculty positions at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She currently serves as an associate editor for the Review of Financial Studies and co-authors influential case studies on corporate ethics, capital strategy, and financial innovation.

• Education:
  • Ph.D. in Finance, Tilburg University (Netherlands)
  • M.Sc. in Finance, HEC Paris (France)
  • B.Sc. in Business Administration, University of Mannheim (Germany)

Her research explores how political ideologies shape financial decision-making, from credit ratings to global capital allocation. Notable themes include the impact of polarization on financial markets, the role of corporate governance in mitigating conflicts of interest, and the ethical dimensions of shareholder behavior. Recent work analyzes the implications of central bank policies like quantitative easing and the political motivations behind corporate speech.

Her articles frequently bridge macroeconomic trends with micro-level corporate actions, such as examining how securities lawsuits influence innovation or how CEO ideologies affect cross-border trade strategies. This interdisciplinary approach has positioned her as a leading voice in understanding the interplay between politics and finance.

• Awards:
  • 2024 Jensen Prize (Second Place)
  • 2018 BlackRock Best Paper Award
  • 2017 J.C. Ruigrok Prize (Best Economics Dissertation, Netherlands)

Professor Kempf’s teaching and research are complemented by her contributions to case studies on corporate governance, including ethical principles in multinational firms and variable dividend strategies in natural resource industries. Her work often incorporates real-world business scenarios to explore complex financial and ethical trade-offs.