Christopher Hennessy awarded ERC grant
Professor Christopher Hennessy has received funding on a competitive basis from the European Research Council (ERC). The grant, which amounts to €1,103,996, has been awarded for a four-year research programme that Christopher will conduct on "Dynamic Structural Corporate Finance: Linking Theory and Empirical Testing."
Over 4,000 applications from the physical, social and life sciences across Europe were submitted to the ERC, this is a 42% increase compared to the last Starting Grant call. Funding for the fourth call was awarded to less than 15% of the proposals.
This award was made under the ERC's fourth competition for the Starting Independent Researchers scheme. The ERC is the first pan-European funding agency for investigator-driven frontier research-the "Pursuit of questions at or beyond the frontiers of knowledge, without regard to established disciplinary boundaries". Its main aim is to stimulate scientific excellence by supporting and encouraging the very best and truly creative scientists, scholars and engineers to be adventurous and take risks in their research. This award will provide valuable resources to support teaching buyouts, research assistance and direct research expenses.
In response to the award, Christopher said: "As an academic working on corporate finance today, I never face a shortage of interesting questions, only scarcity of time and resources to answer them. The ERC Grant represents a tremendous opportunity for me to work on two pressing questions: How responsive are corporations to changes in taxes and regulations? And what combination of taxes and regulations should be used to improve corporate incentives?"
Christopher is a Professor in the Finance Subject Area. A Specialist in corporate financial management, valuation of financial securities, and information economics, he was formerly Associate Professor of the University of California, Berkeley.