Kenneth Singleton Named Editor of Journal of Finance

Kenneth J. Singleton, the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management at Stanford GSB, has been named editor of the prestigious Journal of Finance.

The author of four books and more than sixty published papers, Singleton will assume his position in July 2012. “I’m excited about taking this on, though as it all sinks in it also looks increasingly daunting,” he says.

“The Journal of Finance is generally considered the most prestigious in the field. Ken’s appointment as the editor of this premier journal recognizes his many achievements as a scholar and the very high standards he has shown in his research, standards that he will undoubtedly employ in his new role,” said colleague Paul Pfleiderer, C.O.G. Miller Distinguished Professor of Finance at the business school.

“My co-editors and I come to our positions open to diversity of perspectives and with the aspiration of identifying exciting new directions in research. We want the journal to be an outlet for significant innovation, both along well-established and entirely novel research paths,” says Singleton.

“Stepping back from our normal routine as we attempt to put our hands around the whole profession is an intriguing challenge. It’s an exciting time to view our field from a vantage point of 35,000 feet. Finance is becoming increasingly integrated with economics, and is drawing more widely from other disciplines including psychology and medicine,” he says.

Because the editor of any prestigious academic journal must shoulder a heavy workload, Singleton says he will scale back his teaching responsibilities at Stanford. The journal’s editors are appointed for a term of three years, which may be renewed once.

He has appointed Bruno Biais, of the Toulouse School of Economics, and Michael Roberts, of The Wharton School, as co-editors.

Singleton’s professional awards include the Smith-Breeden Distinguished Paper Prize from the Journal of Finance, the Frisch Prize from the Econometric Society and the Irving Fisher Dissertation Award. He was named fellow of the Econometric Society in 1988 and of the Journal of Econometrics in 1998, and has been a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1982.

He is president of the Society for Financial Studies, and was a co-editor of the Review of Financial Studies from 2000 to 2003.

By Bill Snyder