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Alon Brav

Bratton Family Distinguished Professor
Fuqua School of Business
Box 90120, Durham, NC 27708-0120
W415 Fuqua Sch of Bus, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


Alon Brav is the Bratton Family Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.  Professor Brav obtained his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He joined the Fuqua Faculty in 1997. 

Professor Brav’s current research focuses on corporate governance, shareholder voting, and hedge fund activism. This research has been featured in the Journal of FinanceJournal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies,Financial Analysts Journal, and Columbia Law Review. Professor Brav has also studied the debate between rational and behavioral finance and the literature on limits to arbitrage activities. This research has been featured in the Review of Financial StudiesReview of Finance and Journal of Economic Methodology.

Professor Brav was awarded the 1998 Smith Breeden Distinguished Paper Prize at the Journal of Finance with Paul Gompers, the 2003 Barclays Global Investors Michael Brennan Award for the best paper at the Review of financial studieswith J.B. Heaton, the 2005 Jensen Prize for the best corporate finance paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics with John Graham, Campbell Harvey and Roni Michaely, the 2016 Barclays Global Investors Michael Brennan Award for the best paper published at the Review of Financial studies with Wei Jiang and Hyunseob Kim, and the 2018 Jensen Prize for the best corporate finance and organizations paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics with Wei Jiang, Song Ma, and Xuan Tian.

Professor Brav is faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Corporate Finance Program. He is an associate editor at the Journal of Finance, Research member European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), and senior Fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance.

Professor Brav currently teaches Financial Management in the Weekend Executive MBA program. He has taught Financial Management in the Global Executive MBA and Master of Management programs and an Investments and Corporate Restructuring electives in the Daytime MBA program.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Bratton Family Distinguished Professor · 2023 - Present Fuqua School of Business
Professor of Business Administration · 2008 - Present Fuqua School of Business

In the News


Published May 24, 2017
How Activist Investors Boost Corporate Innovation
Published June 10, 2016
The activist laboratory: Less R&D spending, but more innovation
Published May 14, 2015
Alon Brav comments: Retail shareholders cited as key to DuPont proxy win

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Recent Publications


Shareholder Monitoring through Voting: New Evidence from Proxy Contests

Journal Article Review of Financial Studies · February 1, 2024 We present the first comprehensive study of mutual fund voting in proxy contests. Among contests where voting takes place, passive funds are 10 percentage points less likely than active funds to vote for dissidents. The gap shrinks significantly when accou ... Full text Cite

Wolf Pack Activism

Journal Article Management Science · August 1, 2022 Blockholder monitoring is central to corporate governance, but blockholders large enough to exercise significant unilateral influence are rare. Mechanisms that enable moderately sized blockholders to exert collective influence are therefore important. Exis ... Full text Cite

Retail shareholder participation in the proxy process: Monitoring, engagement, and voting

Journal Article Journal of Financial Economics · May 1, 2022 We study retail shareholder voting using a nearly comprehensive sample of U.S. ownership and voting records. Analyzing turnout within a rational-choice framework, we find participation increases with ownership and expected benefits from winning and decreas ... Full text Cite
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Education, Training & Certifications


The University of Chicago · 1998 Ph.D.