Joao Gomes

Joao Gomes is the Howard Butcher III Professor of Finance at UPenn’s Wharton School, and a Faculty Affiliate of the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative.

Wharton: 1997-present (named James G. Campbell, Jr. Associate Professor of Finance in 2008)

Professor Gomes expertise is in the areas of macroeconomics and financial markets where he has taught several courses to undergraduate, MBA and doctoral students both at Wharton and around the world.

His recent research covers the determinants of the corporate investment and financing decisions of firms and the links to movements in financial markets, and to monetary and fiscal policies. He has also examined the role of financial leverage in determining the cost of capital, the causes of performance variation across asset classes, and the quantitative importance of financial market imperfections on corporate decisions and economic cycles.

Professor Gomes’ research has been presented and discussed at major academic conferences and seminar series around the world and is published in the top rated academic journals in both economics and finance. He has won several awards including the Smith Breeden Prize for Best Asset Pricing Paper published in the Journal of Finance, with a study on the links between leverage and returns, and was nominated for the Brattle Prize for Best Corporate Finance Paper in the same journal, with earlier work on the performance of conglomerates.

Professor Gomes's previous appointments include a professorship at the London Business School. In addition, he has visited several other universities and research centers, including the University of British Columbia in Canada, the New University of Lisbon in Portugal, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Early in his career he has also served as an ad-hoc economic advisor to the Ministry of Industry of Portugal.