Gordon Phillips

Gordon Phillips is the Laurence F. Whittemore Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Finance at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a visiting research professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and UNSW in Sydney. Previously, he taught at the University of Southern California and the University of Maryland, and has been a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, Duke University, HEC Paris, INSEAD, MIT, and Southern Mediterranean University.

Dr. Phillips earned his Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard University in 1991 and his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University in 1986. His academic journey includes positions as Assistant Professor at Purdue University (1991-1995), Assistant/Associate/Full Professor at the University of Maryland (1995-2011), and Professor at the University of Southern California (2012-2015) before joining Dartmouth.

Phillips specializes in corporate finance, with particular expertise in private equity, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, industrial organization, and the application of computational linguistics and artificial intelligence to finance. His research program bridges finance and industrial organization, examining how financial decisions interact with firms' strategic decisions in product markets. He has made significant contributions to understanding corporate valuation, competition dynamics, and the role of textual analysis in identifying competitive relationships.

His recent publications, appearing in top journals like the Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, and Review of Economic Studies, demonstrate his focus on applying natural language processing and AI techniques to traditional finance questions. His work shows trends toward increasingly sophisticated computational methods for analyzing firm competition, industry structure, and the impact of financial decisions on real economic outcomes.

• Oliver Williamson best paper award (2020) for "Innovation Activities and Integration through Vertical Acquisitions"
• Sharpe best paper award (2018) for "Text-Based Industry Momentum"
• Best paper award from Financial Management Association (2013)
• Finalist for Brattle Prize for best paper in corporate finance (2008)
• Multiple paper nominations for Brattle Prize and Smith Breeden Prize

Professor Phillips has advised numerous PhD students who have gone on to successful careers in academia and industry. His research has been supported by multiple National Science Foundation grants, including a $1 million grant for "Exploiting Financial and Economic Data - Business OKN" and several other substantial research awards. He serves as an associate editor for multiple top finance journals and has held leadership positions including President of the Midwest Finance Association (2020-2021).

Phillips co-directs the Hoberg-Phillips Data Library, which provides innovative text-based industry classifications (TNIC) that use natural language processing to identify competitive relationships between firms. This work has created new research opportunities for scholars studying industry structure, competition, and corporate decision-making. He also serves as faculty advisor at Tuck's Center for Private Equity and Venture Capital, where he was faculty director for five years.