Assistant Professor
Finance
About
Ali Kakhbod is an assistant professor of finance at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. He holds a PhD in Economics from MIT and a PhD in EECS from the University of Michigan. Drawing on this dual training, he develops machine-learning methods and economic models to understand how information, beliefs, and new technologies shape financial markets and institutions.
Expertise and Research Interests
- Financial Economics
- Machine Learning
- Information Frictions
- Big Data
Recent Publications
AI and Perception Biases in Investments: An Experimental Study
Journal of Financial Economics (JFE)
(with Anastassia Fedyk, Peiyao Li, and Ulrike Malmendier)
Are Patents with Female Inventors Under-Cited? Evidence from Text Estimation
Journal of Financial Economics (JFE)
vol 183 (with Yael V. Hochberg, Peiyao Li, and Kunal Sachdeva)
Process Intangibles and Agency Conflicts
Journal of Finance (JF)
(with Hui Chen, Mazi Kazemi, and Hao Xing)
Glass Box Machine Learning and Corporate Bond Returns
Journal of Financial Economics (JFE)
vol 181 (with Sebi Bell, Martin Lettau and A. Nazemi)
Before the Storm: Firm Policies and Varying Recession Risk
Management Science (MS)
(with Dmitry Livdan, Max Reppen, and Tarik Umar)
Do Intermediaries Improve GSE Lending? Evidence from Proprietary GSE Data
Journal of Financial Economics (JFE)
vol 170 (with Josh Bosshardt and Amir Kermani)
Advising the Management: A Theory of Shareholder Engagement
(Lead article and Editor’s Choice article)
Review of Financial Studies (RFS)
vol 36 (with Uliana Loginova, Andrey Malenko, Nadya Malenko
The Credit Supply Channel of Monetary Policy Tightening and its Distributional Impacts
Journal of Financial Economics (JFE)
vol 160 (with Josh Bosshardt, Marco Di Maggio and Amir Kermani)
Information Choice and Amplification of Financial Crises
Review of Financial Studies (RFS)
vol 30 (with Toni Ahnert)
Optimal Contracting in Networks
Journal of Economic Theory (JET)
vol 183 (with Ali Jadbabaie)
Dynamic Pricing in Social Networks: The Word of Mouth Effect
Management Science (MS)
vol 64 (with Amir Ajorlou and Ali Jadbabaie)
Please visit my research page for a complete list of publications.
At Haas Since 2022
- 2022 – present, Assistant Professor of Finance, Haas School of Business
- 2021 – 2022, Assistant Professor of Finance, Jones School of Business, Rice University
- Best Paper and Crowell Memorial Prize (First Prize), PanAgora Asset Management, 2026
- Top US Quant & Finance Professors (Rebellion Research), 2024
- Best Paper Award for Real Estate Finance (American Real Estate Society), 2024
- Neekeyfar Fund Award, MIT Office of the Dean for Graduate Education
- Hand Foundation MIT Doctoral Fellowship
- Richard and Eleanor Towner Prize for Distinguished Academic Achievement
- Springer Outstanding PhD Thesis award (university wide)
- University of Michigan Doctoral Fellowship
- Tinker Grant Award, for finance research in large language models, 2025
- Clausen Center Grant Award, 2024
- 230P: Machine learning for finance I ((Un)supervised learning)
- 230ZA: Machine learning for finance II (Reinforcement learning)
- 230ZB: Machine learning for finance III (Generative AI, Causality, and LLMs)