Christopher Hennessy
Professor of Finance
BA (Swarthmore) MA PhD (Princeton)
Professor Christopher Hennessy's research focuses on information economics, moral hazard and debt, debt restructuring, tax planning, financing dynamics and credit risk. His work has been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies. He is a three-time winner of the Brattle Prize for outstanding corporate finance research and was named one of four rising stars in financial economics for 2010.
He is a Professor of Finance at London Business School and formerly Associate Professor and Finance Area Chair at the Walter A Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. He holds a Master of Public Affairs degree and a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.
Professor Hennessy is currently editor of the Review of Corporate Finance Studies and associate editor of the Review of Finance, Finance Research Letters, and Management Science. He is also a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London and the European Corporate Governance Institute. He is a regular visitor at the Vienna Graduate School of Finance and University of Paris-Dauphine.
Formerly a senior associate at KPMG Peat Marwick and research analyst at the United States Treasury Office of Tax Analysis, Professor Hennessy has chaired the academic advisory board at Acumen Global Partners – a London-based derivatives advisory boutique – and served on the academic advisory panel of Benchmark Metrics. He recently received a grant from the European Research Council to study the affect of tax changes on corporate financing decisions.
- Personal website
- chennessy@london.edu
- +44 (0)20 7000 8285
- Christopher Hennessy CV
Research Awards
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European Research Council Starting Independent Researcher Grant, 2011-2015.
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Finance Rising Star Award, 2010.
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Brattle Prize (Outstanding Paper in Journal of Finance), 2004, 2005, and 2007.
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Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow for 2008, University of California, Berkeley.
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Guttmann Fellow, 2007, Vienna.
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Schwabacher Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, 2006.
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Junior Faculty Research Grant, University of California, Berkeley, 2004 and 2005.
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Beinkecke Fellowship, 1992-1994.
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Phi Beta Kappa, Swarthmore College, 1992.
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Chicago Business Fellow, 1991.
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Academic All-American, 1988.
- Taxation
- Valuation of convertible and callable debt
- Dynamic capital structure
- Information economics
2023
Goodhart’s Law and Machine Learning: A Structural Perspective
Hennessy C; Goodhart C
International Economic Review 2023 Vol 64:3 p 1075-1086
2022
Markets versus Mechanisms
Boleslavsky R; Hennessy C A; Kelly D L
Review of Financial Studies 2022 Vol 35:7 p 3139-3174
Signaling, instrumentation, and CFO decision-making
Hennessy C; Chemla G
Journal of Financial Economics 2022 Vol 144:3 p 849-863
2021
Equilibrium Counterfactuals
Hennessy C; Chemla G
International Economic Review 2021 Vol 62:2 p 639-669
2020
Beyond random assignment: credible inference and extrapolation in dynamic economies
Hennessy C A; Strebulaev I A
Journal of Finance 2020 Vol 75:2 p 825-866
Empirical analysis of corporate tax reforms: what is the null and where did it come from?
Hennessy C A; Kasahara A; Strebulaev
Journal of Financial Economics 2020 Vol 135:3 p 555-576
Learning, Parameter Drift, and the Credibility Revolution
Hennessy C A; Livdan D
Journal of Monetary Economics 2020
Rational expectations and the paradox of policy-relevant natural experiments
Chemla G; Hennessy C
Journal of Monetary Economics 2020 Vol 114 p 386-3381
2019
Controls, belief updating, and bias in medical RCTs
Chemla G; Hennessy C A
Journal of Economic Theory 2019 Vol 184
2018
Learning and leverage cycles in general equilibrium: theory and evidence
Hennessy C A; Radnaev B
Review of Finance 2018 Vol 22:1 p 311-335
2016
Government as a borrower of first resort
Chemla G; Hennessy C
Journal of Monetary Economics 2016 Vol 84 p 1-16
Secondary market liquidity and security design: theory and evidence from ABS markets
Friewald N; Hennessy C; Jankowitsch R
Review of Financial Studies 2016 Vol 29:5 p 1254-1290
2014
Skin in the game and moral hazard
Chemla G; Hennessy C
Journal of Finance 2014 July Vol 69:4 p 1597-1641
2011
A theory of debt market liquidity and leverage cyclicality
Hennessy C; Zechner J
Review of Financial Studies 2011 August Vol 24:10 p 3369-3400
2010
Acquisition values and optimal financial (in) flexibilty
Hennessy C; Hege U
Review of Financial Studies 2010 March Vol 23:7 p 2865-2899
Repeated signaling and firm dynamics
Hennessy C; Livdan D; Miranda B
Review of Financial Studies 2010 March Vol 23:5 p 1981-2023
2009
Debt, bargaining, and credibility in firm-supplier relationships
Hennessy C A; Livdan D
Journal of Financial Economics 2009 September Vol 93:3 p 382-399
2008
Taxation, agency conflicts, and the choice between callable and convertible bonds
Hennessy C; Tserlukevich Y
Journal of Economic Theory 2008 November Vol 143:1 p 374-404
2007
Can the tradeoff theory explain debt structure?
Hennessy C; Hackbarth D; Leland D
Review of Financial Studies 2007 Vol 20:5 p 1389-1428
How costly is external financing? Evidence from a structured estimation
Hennessy C; Whited T
Journal of Finance 2007 Vol 62:4 p 1705-1745
Testing Q theory with financing frictions
Hennessy C; Whited T; Levy A
Journal of Financial Economics 2007 Vol 83:3 p 691-717
Why does capital structure choice vary with macroeconomic conditions
Hennessy C; Levy A
Journal of Monetary Economics 2007:54 p 1545-1564
2004
Tobin's Q, debt overhang and investment
Hennessy C
Journal of Finance 2004 Vol 59:4 p 1717-1742
2017
Subject rational expectations will contaminate randomized controlled medical trials
Chemla G; Hennessy C
CEPR Discussion Paper
2015
Natural experiment policy evaluation: a critique
Hennessy C; Strebulaev I
CEPR Discussion Paper
Secondary market liquidity and security design: theory and evidence from ABS markets
Friewald N; Hennessy C A; Jankowitsch R
Working Paper
2011
Security design: signaling versus speculative markets
Chemla G; Hennessy C
CEPR Discussion Paper
Teaching portfolio
Our teaching offering is updated annually. Faculty and programme material are subject to change.