Prof. William Goetzmann Named Executive Editor of Financial Analysts Journal
William N. Goetzmann, the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies and director of the International Center for Finance, has been named executive editor of the Financial Analysts Journal, a publication of the CFA Institute.
“Professor Goetzmann was selected for his seminal contribution to the investment profession; his expertise encompasses the philosophical roots of investment management, financial markets history, and his current research on alternative investing and behavioral finance,” said Dr. Heidi Raubenheimer, managing editor of the Financial Analysts Journal, in the announcement. “At a time when profound changes are taking place in the world at-large, the essential dynamism of the industry has come into sharp focus once again. We look forward to Professor Goetzmann’s broad knowledge being brought to bear for practitioners and the future of our profession.”
Goetzmann, who has taught at Yale SOM since 1994, is an expert on a wide variety of finance topics, with recent research on alternative investing, factor investing, behavioral finance, and the art market. His most recent book is Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible.
Goetzmann said that he was excited about his new role. “The FAJ has long been the link between leading financial research and professional investment,” he said. “It is the venue by which money managers learned about and debated such new topics as mean-variance optimization, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, factor investing, portfolio insurance, the South Africa Boycott and the endowment model of Yale fame.”
In addition, he noted, the journal “has been a key venue for publishing papers on ethical investment management—from editor William Norby’s 1971 special issue on corporate social responsibility to John Rogers’ high profile article on Fiduciary Capitalism in 2014.”
Goetzmann has a personal connection to the Financial Analysts Journal and the CFA Institute, he pointed out. His first academic article appeared in the journal in 1986, and in 2018 he received the institute’s James R. Vertin Award, which recognizes scholars who have produced a body of research with enduring value. “The executive editorship is something I couldn’t turn down,” he said.