Joel Vanden is an Associate Professor of Finance in the Smeal College of Business at The Pennsylvania State University. Professor Vanden received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, his MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles, and a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Before joining the Smeal College of Business in 2008, Professor Vanden was a finance professor for nine years at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. At the Tuck School, Professor Vanden taught second-year MBA electives in the areas of derivative markets and debt markets. On the research side, Professor Vanden received the Paul Raether Tuck '73 Fellowship for outstanding scholarly achievements. Prior to getting his Ph.D. and joining the Tuck School, Professor Vanden spent several years working in the private sector for Bank of Boston Corporation, SunAmerica Life Insurance Company, Financial Engineering Associates, Chalke Incorporated (asset liability management), and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
Expertise
Professor Vanden's research is focused primarily on the area of asset pricing. Professor Vanden has examined the role that non-redundant options play in explaining equity returns; how option coskewness impacts stock prices; the use of structured debt for solving the asset substitution problem; how information quality affects option values; the role of price manipulation for explaining derivative prices; and how portfolio insurance contributes to volatility regime switching. His research on option coskewness was awarded a research grant from the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance (The Q Group). Currently, Professor Vanden is interested in how imperfect competition affects mutual fund fees and how diversification impacts optimal corporate capital structures.
Education
Ph D in Finance, University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, Berkeley, CA, 1999-06-01 MBA in Finance, The University of California, Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management, Los Angeles, CA, 1990-03-01 BS in Engineering, The University of Illinois, Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Urbana-Champaign, IL, 1986-05-01
Courses Taught
FIN 408 – Fin Mrkts and Insts
Functional analysis of major credit institutions; sources and uses of funds; impact of government regulation.
FIN 410 – Derivative Markets
Functions, techniques, and impact of speculation conducted through forward markets; the nature of speculative transactions, pricing, and methods of trading.
FIN 601 – PH.D. DISSERTATION FULL-TIME
Selected Publications
Vanden J. M. "Asset Pricing: A New Approach for a Family of Problems" forthcoming at Mathematics and Financial Economics, 2026-07-01
Vanden J. M. "Low Power of Alpha Tests When Factors Are Constructed From Sorted Portfolios" Journal of Financial Econometrics, vol. 24, 2026-05-01
Vanden J. M. "Equilibrium Asset Pricing and the Cross Section of Expected Returns" Annals of Finance, vol. 17, 2021-01-01
Vanden J. M., Grishchenko O., Zhang J. "The Informational Content of the Embedded Deflation Option in TIPS" Journal of Banking and Finance, vol. 65, 2016-04-01
Vanden J. M. "Optimal Capital Structures for Private Firms" Annals of Finance, vol. 12, 2016-01-01
Vanden J. M. "Noisy Information and the Size Effect in Stock Returns" Annals of Finance, vol. 11, 2015-03-01
Vanden J. M. "Online supplement to Vanden, J., 2015, "Noisy Information and the Size Effect in Stock Returns," Annals of Finance." DOI: 10.1007/s10436-014-0250-0, 2015-02-01
Vanden J. M. "General Properties of Isoelastic Utility Economies" Mathematical Finance, vol. 25, 2015-01-01
Vanden J. M., Garcia D. "Information Acquisition and Mutual Funds" Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 144, 2009-09-01
Vanden J. M., Garcia D. "Online supplement to Garcia, D. and J. Vanden, 2009, "Information Acquisition and Mutual Funds," Journal of Economic Theory." https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0022053109000477-mmc1.pdf, 2009-09-01
Vanden J. M. "Asset Substitution and Structured Financing" Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, vol. 44, 2009-08-01
Vanden J. M. "Information Quality and Options" Review of Financial Studies, vol. 21, 2008-11-01
Vanden J. M. "Exact Superreplication Strategies for a Class of Derivative Assets" Applied Mathematical Finance, vol. 13, 2006-01-01
Vanden J. M. "Option Coskewness and Capital Asset Pricing" Review of Financial Studies, vol. 19, 2006-01-01
Vanden J. M. "Portfolio Insurance and Volatility Regime Switching" Mathematical Finance, vol. 16, 2006-01-01
Vanden J. M. "Equilibrium Analysis of Volatility Clustering" Journal of Empirical Finance, vol. 12, 2005-02-01
Vanden J. M. "Digital Contracts and Price Manipulation" Journal of Business, vol. 78, 2005-01-01
Vanden J. M. "Options Trading and the CAPM" Review of Financial Studies, vol. 17, 2004-01-01
Vanden J. M. "Managing Interest Rate Risk Using the Surplus Ratio" Contingencies, 1993-01-01