Center Scholar
John R. Graham is the D. Richard Mead professor of finance at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. His past work experience includes teaching at the University of Utah and seven years working as a senior economist at Virginia Power. He has been co-editor of the Journal of Finance, associate editor of The Review of Financial Studies, Finance Research Letters, and Financial Management, and has served on the board of directors of the American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, and the Financial Management Association, three of the largest academic finance professional organizations. Graham is President-elect of the Financial Management Association and past President of the Western Finance Association, is a Fellow of the Financial Management Association and Distinguished Scholar of the Eastern Finance Association, and is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has won multiple best teacher and outstanding faculty awards. Graham has served two stints as area coordinator of Fuqua’s finance area and as co-director of the Duke Center for Financial Excellence.
Graham has published more than 80 articles and book chapters on corporate taxes, cost of capital, capital structure, risk management, financial reporting, and payout policy. His research has won numerous awards, including the Jensen Prize (5 times), the Brattle Prize, a Graham and Dodd Scroll, the Financial Reporting Section American Accounting Association award (2 times), and the Notable Contribution to Accounting Award (2 times). His simulated corporate marginal income tax rates are widely used and are an important input in the Duff and Phelps cost of capital publications. Duff and Phelps also publishes optimal capital structure analysis in their Valuation book. His teaching focuses on corporate finance broadly, taxes, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate restructuring.
Since 1997 Graham has been the director of the Global Business Outlook (http://www.cfosurvey.org), a quarterly CFO survey that assesses the business climate and topical economic issues around the world. He appears regularly in the media to discuss the survey and corporate sector. Finally, Graham is lead author on the textbooks Corporate Finance: Linking Theory to What Companies Do and Introduction to Corporate Finance.