Robert Haugen

Robert (Bob) Arthur Haugen (born on June 26, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois) is a renowned professor of theoretical finance. He is currently retired from academics and is the president of Haugen Custom Financial Systems

Education

Bob obtained his B.S. degree from the business school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bob proceeded to obtain, an M.S. and then a PhD in finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Career and Publications

After graduating, Bob accepted an offer as a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. While at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bob published a paper in real estate discrimination that became widely used in the academic world. He also became involved in the Finance Society. Bob’s first major book, coauthored by two colleagues, Amir Barnea and Lemma Senbet, was Agency Problems and Financial Contracting published in 1984. In this book he explained how personal compensation issues affected financial deals.

Bob went on to accept a new position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While there, Bob was working on two books. The first was his textbook Modern Investment Theory. Bob was also working on another short book with his co-author Josef Lakonoshuk, about the January effect in the stock market. Research seemed to show that, on average, all of a portfolio’s real return was made in the first two weeks in January.

Bob went on to a new position at the University of California/Riverside, but soon left and joined the University of California/Irvine. Bob continued on his research, and his relationship with NISA (National Investment Services of America). He also lectured internationally on Modern Finance, including the Amsterdam Institute of Finance, where he taught for 10 years. Bob served on the Board of Directors for a variety of concerns.

Bob held endowed chairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of California-Irvine. He is a successful author; his fourteen books have been published in 8 languages. His textbook, Modern Investment Theory is used in M.B.A. courses worldwide. His book The Incredible January Effect introduced that celebrated phenomenon to the investment community. His book The New Finance was required reading on the Chartered Financial Analysts’ examinations for five years. Bob has had articles in Business Week, Money, Smart Money, The Herald Tribune, Barrons and many other publications. Bob published the first academic article documenting the nature and power of the expected return factor model in The Journal of Financial Economics in 1996 making him the father of this important quantitative investment tool. He explains the model in his text The Inefficient Stock Market—What Pays Off and Why, now in a second edition. Bob’s publishing successes and research led to his success in his third career: businessman. Using a computerized application of his famous model, Bob created Haugen Custom Financial Systems that provides institutional clients with expected returns for 8000 stocks worldwide. Over 80 billion dollars are managed using Bob’s quantitative methodology.