Babak Lotfaliei

Assistant Professor of Finance

Department of Accounting Law and Finance

Business

Academic and Student Affairs


SVSU Main Campus

Curtiss Hall-W Compx 307

989-964-2651

blotfali@svsu.edu

Personal website

Biography

Babak Joined SVSU in 2021. Before joining SVSU, he was a finance faculty at San Diego State University. He has experience as financial analyst, fund manager, and chief research officer in financial services before following an academic path to become a faculty.

He does research in finance and interdisciplinary research. His research is published by finance journals (such as the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (JFQA), and Journal of Banking and Finance (JBF)), policy outlets (such as European Central Bank's ESRB working papers), as well as other disciplines (such as European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR)). He is currently an associate editor for Finance Research Letters and Global Finance Journal.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy
Mcgill University

Teaching Interests

Babak has teaching experience in the following, which has brought him recognition in teaching awards, such as the most influential faculty for MBA students:

  • Financial derivatives

  • Intorductory corporate finance (MBA, undergraduate)

  • International finance

  • Case-based applied corporate finance (financial management capstone course)

  • Investments, and student managed equity fund

He also has advised university teams in finance competitions, such as Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) challenge, leading to 2 regional wins. Interested students can directly contact him for more information.

Research

Reseach network profiles: Google Scholar  ORCID  ResearchGate  SSRN

Babak's current research focuses on:

  • Structural Models of Credit Risk and the Firm

  • Capital Structure Theory

  • Derivative Pricing

  • Real options

These subjects analyze investment (Real options), and borrowing decisions by corporations (Capital Structure Theory), and how the market evaluates the creditworthiness of the firms (Structural Models of Credit Risk and the Firm, Derivative Pricing). He collaborates in inter-disciplinary research. His primary research bridges asset pricing (market evaluation) and corporate finance (corporate decisions).

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His data and codes to replicate his research are available to public at https://www.babakl.com/research.

Selected publications:

  • Alibeiki, Hedayat and Babak Lotfaliei, 2022,   To Expand And To Abandon: Real Options Under Asset Variance Risk Premium,   European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR) , Volume 300, Issue 2, Pages 771-787, DOI (Files for replicating the paper using MATLAB)
  • Lotfaliei, Babak, 2021, Asset Variance Risk Premium and Capital Structure**, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (JFQA), Volume 56 , Issue 2 , March, pp. 647 - 691 (DOI, Replication link)
  • Lotfaliei, Babak, 2018 , Zero Leverage and The Value in Waiting to Issue Debt*, Journal of Banking and Finance (JBF), Vol. 97, Pages 335-349, ISSN 0378-4266 (DOI, Replication link)

Honors and Awards

  • Most influential professor awarded (selected by MBA students), SDSU, 2020     
  • Winning team in CFA case challenge, Faculty adviser, San Diego region2019
  • Winning team in CFA case challenge, Faculty adviser, San Diego region, 2016
  • *Outstanding Paper Award, California Corporate Finance Conference2016
  • *Outstanding Paper Award in Corporate Finance, Mid-west Finance Association, 2014
  • Excellence in Teaching Award (Financial Derivatives),  McGill University2013
  • *Best Paper Award Semi-finalist, Financial Management Association (FMA), 2014
  • **Best Paper Award Semi-finalist, Financial Management Association (FMA), 2015

Affiliations

Academic network