Clifford A. Ball

Biography

Consulting

Professor Ball also served as a consultant in equity portfolio performance measure-ment for Van Hedge Funds and was a research associate at the Center for the Study of Futures Markets at Columbia University.

Impact

Professor Ball’s many research and teaching contributions place him among the elite group who have done so much over the years to help the Owen School achieve its international reputation. During his tenure at Owen, Professor Ball was a director of the Ph.D. program and also the faculty director of the Master of Science in Finance program. He served as an associate editor of the Journal of Empirical Finance and was an active reviewer for numerous finance and statistical journals.

Teaching

Ball joined the Owen Graduate School of Management as an associate professor in 1990 and enjoyed a productive career at Vanderbilt until his retirement. He taught statistical analysis and the intricacies of equities, bonds, options, and futures contracts. His classes also covered empirical testing of financial models, stochastic processes and statistical applications to finance, the European monetary system, capital requirements, and risk management and value-at-risk. Before coming to Owen, he taught at the University of Michigan and at the London Business School in the 1980s and worked in New York at Shearson Lehman, specializing in options and fixed income research.

Research Interests

Professor Ball was an active researcher, focusing on equity portfolio management, empirical finance, fixed income, and volatility of futures prices.

Education

PhD, Mathematics, University of New Mexico

M.Sc., Mathematics, University of Nottingham in England

B.S., Mathematics, University of Nottingham in England