Biography
Whether advising Fortune 500 companies or using his work experience at the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to illustrate a point in class, Professor Sanjai Bhagat is easily able to explain complicated financial theories to students.
Throughout his more than 20-year teaching career, Bhagat has been recognized for excellence in education. He was the Graduate Professor of the Year and winner of the Frascona Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award and an Educator of Distinction Award Finalist.
In addition to teaching finance at the Leeds School of Business, Bhagat is also connected to the start-up community in Colorado and is the founding director of TiE-Rockies (The Indus Entrepreneurs)—a professional group for technology entrepreneurs.
His work “The Promise and Perils of Corporate Governance Indices,” was recently selected as one of the “Best Corporate and Securities Articles of 2009” by the Vanderbilt Law School publication Corporate Practice Commentator. The European Corporate Governance Institute also awarded the article the De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek Law Prize for best paper in a law series.
His work shows that corporate governance indices, which are designed to measure a firm’s quality and inform investors, are flawed. The indices fail to capture the diverse ways governance operates. Bhagat served on an expert panel in Washington, D.C., and answered financial policymakers questions on this topic. He is a sought- after expert on corporate governance and financial issues whose work is often cited in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, AOL Daily Finance and the New York Times.
Publications
Working Paper
January 2009
Authors: Sanjai Bhagat and Brian Bolton
Corporate governance studies should consider director stock ownership as the most reliable measure of governance.
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Working Paper
January 2009
Authors: Sanjai Bhagat and Heather Tookes
Actual equity holdings by outside directors are positively related to future operating performance.
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Working Paper
January 2009
Authors: Sanjai Bhagat, et al.
Managerial discretion and manager-specific characteristics are important determinants of firms’ financial policies.
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News
Bloomberg Businessweek
November 15, 2011
The research of Finance Professor Sanjai Bhagat is cited in this article about who pays in the end during an economic crisis.
The Island
October 2, 2011
Finance Professor Sanjai Bhagat provides insight on the issue of bank failures.
Boulder County Business Report
October 14, 2011
Finance Professor Sanjay Bhagat comments on how consumers will be affected by new financial language required by the new federal Consumer Protection Financial Bureau.
Bloomberg Businessweek
September 16, 2010
Researchers Sanjai Bhagat, Brian Bolton, and Ajay Subramanian, found that hiring new CEOs with MBA degrees had little or no impact on their company's long-term performance, it was a key factor in whether the CEO was hired in the first place.
Bloomberg Businessweek
February 16, 2011
Research by economist Sanjai Bhagat shows that top private-sector bankers knew when to cash out of the economic crisis in 2008: before all the suckers get crushed.
Past Events
Conference
September 15–16, 2000
Hyatt Regency
Beaver Creek, Colorado
Topic: Equity Risk Premium
Conference
January 19, 2000
5:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Mel's Bar & Grill
235 Fillmore Street
Cherry Creek, Denver
Insights relevant to investment managers on the basis of cutting-edge finance and accounting research
Video
This is a follow-up to Sanjai Bhagat's video on bank executive compensation. Bhagat, a finance professor at the Leeds School of Business, argues that U.S. banks should be funded with more capital and less debt and that the current standards for such funding are dangerously low.
