The Finance Professor Podcast

The Seasonality of Climbing Mt. McKinley (Denali)   29 Pages Posted: 8 Apr 2026 by Linus Wilson University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration Date Written: March 17, 2026 Abstract This note finds that climbers are significantly more likely to summit Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska, the highest point in North America, in June or early July than other parts of the Mt. M...

Saving the Toughest for Last: 50th Completers’ Final U.S. State High Points   21 Pages Posted: Linus Wilson University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration Date Written: December 27, 2023 Abstract This paper finds that the most difficult U.S. state high point climbs are saved for the end. 50th completers are significantly more likely to save more difficult U.S. state high...

Does Difficulty Affect U.S. State High Points Ascents? Download it at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4516746   24 Pages Posted: Linus Wilson University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration Date Written: July 20, 2023 Abstract We develop a six-factor ranking of U.S. state high points. While this index is significantly associated with fewer ascents, onl...

Dr. Linus Wilson reads his latest paper about the bank runs at SVB and Signature Bank and the Federal Reserve's emergency loan program to save the banks from further uninsured deposit runs.  The Fed Funds Risk-Premium after the Silicon Valley Bank Run and the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP)   28 Pages Posted: Linus Wilson University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration D...

by Linus Wilson Abstract The loan standards question in the Federal Reserve’s quarterly Senior Loan Officer Survey is shown to be predictive of quarterly stock returns a month or two after its release. This is an apparent violation of semi-strong form stock market efficiency. Out-of-sample, we use this signal and develop a simple risk and alpha model to market time the S&P 500. It outperformed the...

This is the substantially revised version of this paper.    Estimating the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) Losses from COVID-19 Infections in the United States   29 Pages Posted: 21 Apr 2020 Last revised: 6 Dec 2021 Linus Wilson University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration Date Written: December 3, 2021 Abstract This paper uses the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) liter...

Dr. Linus Wilson discusses and reads his most recent study about the cryptocurrency mining and computer hardware prices entitled "GPU Prices and Cryptocurrency Returns".   "Abstract  We look at the association between the price of a cryptocurrency and the secondary market prices  of the hardware used to mine it. We find the prices of the most efficient Graphical Processing Units  (GPUs) for Ethere...

Dr. Linus Wilson discusses and reads his new study: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) Implied by the Serology, Antibody, Testing in New York City Wilson, Linus, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) Implied by the Serology, Antibody, Testing in New York City (May 1, 2020). Available at SSRN:  https://ssrn.com/abstract=3590771 "Abstract  The SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, inf...

Dr. Wilson reads and discusses his new paper: Wilson, Linus, Estimating the Life Expectancy and Value of Statistical Life (VSL) Losses from COVID-19 Infections in the United States (April 19, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3580414 His the "Download this paper" button to get a free copy. Estimating the Life Expectancy and Value of Statistical Life (VSL) Losses from COVID-19 Inf...

A year from the inauguration, four of the top five Democratic 2020 U.S. Presidential election candidates in the polls are in their seventies. Using actuarial data and the history of Presidential assassinations, the top two contenders, Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, have a 24 to 29 percent chance of not surviving to the end of a hypothetical first term. The 77 a...

Professor Linus Wilson discusses his new paper "Clickbait Works! The secret to getting views with the YouTube algorithm." There is a lot of contradictory advice about what metrics the largest video sharing site in the world and the second largest social network promotes. Using a new data set available to YouTube creators starting in 2018, Dr. Wilson finds that click-through rates are by far the mo...

Find out about the secret $2.7 trillion bailout of Money Market Mutual Funds MMMFs in 2008. The collapse of Lehman Brothers its commercial paper default caused the Primary Reserve Fund to "break the buck" or sell for less than $1.00 per share.  Wilson, Linus, Broken Bucks: Money Funds that Took Taxpayer Guarantees in 2008 (August 28, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2195358 or h...

Linus Wilson reads his recently updated working paper entitled "A Dove to Hawk Ranking of the Martin to Yellen Federal Reserves" and talks about the current state of Federal Reserve interest rate policy. He previews his talk with the New York Times Bestselling author Roger Lowenstein which will be released in an upcoming episode. The paper read is as follows:  "A Dove to Hawk Ranking of the Martin...

In this episode you will hear how nonrecourse loans can lead to option payoffs for the borrower. The securitzation market got a boost from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis. Dr. Linus Wilson, Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette reads his working paper  Toxic Asset Subsidies and the Early Redemption of TALF Loans https://ssrn.com/abstract=1742640...

Linus Wilson reads his joint work with Wendy Yan Wu of Wilfrid Laurier University and updates the plans for the 2018 for the The Finance Professor Podcast.   Does Receiving TARP Funds Make it Easier to Roll Your Commercial Paper Onto the Fed?   32 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2011 Last revised: 24 Aug 2011 Linus Wilson University of Louisiana at Lafayette - College of Business Administration Yan Wendy Wu...

Professor Andrew Metrick is the Michael H. Jordan Professor of Finance and Management at the Yale School of Management. He is the director, Yale Program on Financial Stability and the Faculty Director, Masters in Systemic Risk program at Yale. Professor Metrick was an assistant professor in economics at Harvard University and was an assistant and associate professor of finance at the Wharton Schoo...

Professor Linus Wilson reads his paper "Discrete Portfolio Adjustment with Fixed Transaction Costs" Suggested Citation: Wilson, Linus, Discrete Portfolio Adjustment with Fixed Transaction Costs (January 3, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2406021 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2406021 Abstract This paper presents a closed form solution to the portfolio adjustment problem in d...

Linus Wilson reads his joint work at  https://ssrn.com/abstract=1977345 "Overpaid CEOs Got FDIC Debt Guarantees" By Linus Wilson, University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Yan Wendy Wu, Wilfrid Laurier University abstract From 2008 to 2009, the FDIC guaranteed hundreds of billions of dollars of newly issued bank debt through the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP). We find that CEOs making...

In the latest episode, I read my new working paper:  How to Compare Faculty Pay Across the Business School by Linus Wilson You can download it by hitting the orange download button at the link. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2954800 The abstract is below: "By scaling pay by AACSB averages pay across business school disciplines can be analyzed. This study looks at a unique data...

The JOBS Act opened up a lot of crowdfunding opportunities for entrepreneurs. That also means much more research opportunities for finance professors. In the second episode, I read my recent working paper " A Little Bit of Money Goes a Long Way: Crowdfunding on Patreon by YouTube Sailing Channels ". The abstract says: "This study finds that YouTube channels crowdfunding on Patreon have more freque...

The Finance Professor Podcast is hosted by Linus Wilson . Dr. Wilson earned his Ph. D. in 2007 from Oxford University. He has taught thousands of finance students at all levels. His research is in banking, financial crises, CEO pay, and corporate finance. I’ll be reading my academic research initially.