Efraim Benmelech is the Harold L. Stuart Professor of Finance and the Director of the Guthrie Center for Real Estate Research at the Kellogg School of Management and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Professor Benmelech research interests are in the field of credit markets where he studies financial contracting, financial crises, securitization, bankruptcy and financial distress. He has published numerous journal articles and was awarded the 2004 Lehman Brothers Fellowship for Research Excellence in Finance, an NSF CAREER Award, and the 2011 Brattle Prize for the outstanding research paper on corporate finance published in the Journal of Finance for his paper "Bankruptcy and the Collateral Channel." He also writes extensively on the economics of terrorism and economic history. Professor Benmelech's research on financial distress, the financial crisis and on terrorism have received wide media coverage in outlets such as Bloomberg, the Boston Globe, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, The Economist and USA TODAY. He is an Editor of the Review of Corporate Finance Studies and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Finance. He holds BA and MBA degrees from the Hebrew University and a PhD in finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Applied Corporate Finance, Banking, Bankruptcy, Financial Contracting

• Ph.D., 2005, Finance, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago
• M.B.A., 2001, School of Business Administration, School of Business Administration, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• B.A., 1999, Economics and Business Administration, Department of Economics and the School of Business Administration, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Director, Real Estate, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2014-present
• Harold L. Stuart Professor of Finance, Finance, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2014-present
• Associate Professor of Finance, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2012-2014
• Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Harvard University, 2011-2012
• Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Harvard University, 2009-2010
• Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Harvard University, 2005-2009
• Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Organizational Economics, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, 2004-2005

• Program Committee, AFA 2010 (session chair), AFA 2013, European Summer Symposium in Financial Markets 2010, Finance Down Under, Melbourne 2011, Olin Business School Corporate Finance Conference (2010, 2011, 2012), WFA (2010, 2011, 2012), SITE 2008, 2010-2013
• Organizer of the NBER Corporate Finance Meeting, NBER, 2010-2010
• Research Associate (Corporate Finance and Development of the American Economy), National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006-present
• Referee/reviewer, Referee/reviewer, American Journal: Macro, Econometrica, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal Conflict Resolution, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizaion, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organizations, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Journal of Political Economy, MacArthur Foundation, Management Science, National Science Foundation, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Rand Journal of Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Review of Finance, and Review of Financial Studies, 2001-2001
• Member, Board of Directors, Israel National Coal Supplies Company (State-owned company for coal supplies), 2000-2001
• Assistant Director, Israel Ministry of Finance, 1998-2001
• Major, Commander of Company and COO, Israeli Defense Forces, 1990-1996

• The Review of Corporate Finance Studies best paper award, Financial Studies Society
• The Review of Corporate Finance Studies Best Paper Award, 2012
• National Science Foundation CAREER Award: Empirical Analysis of the Causes and Consequences of Financial Distress, 2009-2014
• The Maurice Falk Award for Outstanding Students Papers, 1999
• The Journal of Finance Brattle Group Award, First Prize, 2011
• Excellence in Refereeing Award, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2011
• Excellence in Refereeing Award, American Economic Review, 2009
• Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance, 2009
• GARP Risk Management Research Program Grant, 2007
• Andrew E. Furer Fellow, Department of Economics, Harvard University, 2006-2009
• Warburg Fund, Harvard, 2006, 2007, 2008
• Clark Fund, Harvard, 2006, 2008, 2009
• John Leusner Family Fellowship, University of Chicago, GSB, 2005
• The Lehman Brothers Fellowship for Research Excellence in Finance (1st Prize), 2004-2005
• The FDIC Center for Financial Research Fellowship, 2004
• The AFA Student Travel Grant, 2004
• The Harry Simons Fellowship, 2003-2004
• The CRSP Summer Paper Grant, 2002
• The Solomon Fund Fellowship, 2002
• The University of Chicago, GSB Fellowship, 2001-2005
• The Israeli Defense Forces, Chief of General Staff Award for Outstanding Officers, (Award for Excellence and Leadership by Mr. Ehud Barak, Israel Former Prime Minister), 1994

• Associate Editor, Journal of Finance, 2013-Present
• Editor, Review of Corporate Finance Studies, 2011-Present

Corporate Finance, Corporate Bankruptcy

Corporate Finance III (FINC-586-3)
This course provides a theoretical and empirical treatment of major topics in empirical corporate finance, including financial contracting; banking, securitization, and financial regulation: household finance and macroeconomics; entrepreneurship and venture capital.

Corporate Finance II (FINC-586-2)
This course provides a theoretical and empirical treatment of major topics in empirical corporate finance, including: investment decisions, capital structure, corporate governance, and law and finance.

International Real Estate (REAL-922-5)
This course was formerly known as REAL 922-B
This half-credit course will expose students to the importance of both strategy and execution in the world of cross-border real estate investments. Topics will include the rationale for international investing (opportunities and risks); top-down macro factors influencing real estate markets; micro-market factors influencing real estate investment performance; and the role of transparency, taxes and legal rights in different countries. Students will analyze international private equity funds and internationally listed real estate companies and they will examine case studies of cross-border investment decisions.

Financial Decisions (FINC-442-0)
This course uses case studies to enhance the student's understanding of managerial financial decision making, specifically investment and financing decisions. Topics include short- and long-term financing, capital structure and dividend decisions, cost of capital, capital budgeting, firm valuation, financial and operational restructuring, and mergers and acquisitions. The course emphasizes the basic principles of corporate finance and is sufficiently general so as to be of interest to all students. The course provides students with the opportunity to apply the concepts and theories developed in other finance courses. At its most fundamental level, the course attempts to improve problem-solving skills: problem definition, gathering and organizing the relevant information, developing feasible alternative courses of action, evaluating alternative choices, and recommending and defending the best course of action.