Paul Asquith is the Gordon Y. Billard Professor of Finance at MIT's Sloan School, where he has been on the faculty for 30 years and is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
At the Sloan School, he served as Senior Associate Dean and as Chairman of Sloan's Building Committee. He teaches in the finance area, most recently Introduction to Corporate Finance. Professor Asquith has also developed and taught three other courses at MIT: Advanced Corporate Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Security Design. He previously taught at Harvard University for 10 years, at the University of Chicago, and at Duke University. He is the recipient of 14 Teaching Excellence Awards from MIT, Harvard, and Duke. He is also the inaugural recipient of MIT's Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
Professor Asquith received his BS from Michigan State University and his AM and PhD from the University of Chicago. A member of the American Accounting Association, the American Finance Association, and the Financial Management Association, Professor Asquith was regularly a discussant at financial conferences. In 1985, he spent one semester at Salomon Brothers while on sabbatical from Harvard University. Professor Asquith was formerly a Director of Aurora National Life Assurance Company. He has advised many corporations including Citicorp, IBM, Merck, Morgan Guaranty, Price Waterhouse, Royal Bank of Canada, Salomon Brothers, Toronto Dominion Bank, and Xerox, and has also served as an expert witness in both Federal Court and the Delaware Chancery Court.
Current research interests include regulated transparency in capital markets. His published articles include “Original Issue High Yield Bonds: Aging Analyses of Defaults, Exchanges, and Calls,” which won the 1989 Journal of Finance's Smith-Breeden award, and “Information Content of Equity Analyst Reports” in the Journal of Financial Economics, as well as several articles on corporate mergers, corporate dividend policy, the timing of corporate equity issues, stock splits, corporate call policy for convertible debt, and short sales in debt and equity markets. Professor Asquith was previously Associate Editor of the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Financial Management. He was also director of the Financial Services Research Center at MIT.
Lawrence A. Weiss is Professor of International Accounting at Tufts University. Professor Weiss has taught introductory courses to advanced financial accounting as well as managerial accounting and finance courses. He previously taught at Georgetown University, IMD, HEC Lausanne, MIT's Sloan School, INSEAD, Tulane, Babson, and McGill University. He received the teacher of the year award while on the faculty of MIT and was repeatedly nominated for Best Professor at Tufts, INSEAD, and Tulane University.
Professor Weiss received his B. Com., Diploma in Public Accounting, and MBA from McGill University and his doctorate in Business Administration from Harvard University. He began his career as a Canadian Chartered Accountant (equivalent to a CPA in the United States) working for KPMG. A member of the American Accounting Association, he has been a discussant and has presented numerous papers. Professor Weiss is a recognized expert on U.S. corporate bankruptcy, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on bankruptcy reform. He has also advised corporations on their costing systems, and served as an expert witness in both civil and criminal cases.
Current research has three themes: the reorganization of financially distressed firms, operations management, and the transition from country-specific accounting standards (Local GAAP) to one set of global standards (IFRS). His published work includes “Bankruptcy Resolution: Direct Costs and Violation of Priority of Claims,” which won a Journal of Financial Economics All-Star Paper award; “Value Destruction in the New Era of Chapter 11” in the Journal of Law Economics and Organizations; and “On the Relationship between Inventory and Financial Performance in Manufacturing Companies,” in the International Journal of Operations Management. His book Corporate Bankruptcy: Economic and Legal Perspectives is published by Cambridge University Press. His two books Accounting for Fun and Profit: A Guide to Understanding Financial Statements (2016) and Accounting for Fun and Profit: A Guide to Understanding Advanced Topics in Accounting (2017) were published by Business Expert Press. Professor Weiss has also published op-eds in the New York Times, the (Toronto) Globe and Mail, and at HBR.org.