College Park, Md. – November 5, 2009 — The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business launched the new Center for Financial Policy on Nov. 2 with a roundtable discussion on the hotly debated issue of “Executive Compensation—Practices and Reform.” The Center for Financial Policy offers an unbiased source of expertise on complex policy issues related to financial institutions, financial markets and public companies through cutting edge education and research.

Smith School faculty have been actively involved in advising key players and proposing potential solutions to the finance crisis, briefing congressional staffers, members of the House and Senate Committee on Banking and the Committee on Government Oversight, and the federal Oversight and Government Reform Committee on issues from the collapse of Bear Stearns to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Curt Grimm, Dean’s Professor of Supply Chain and Strategy, received his PhD in economics from the University of California-Berkeley, with primary focus on industrial organization.

Research by Russ Wermers Knowing how the best mutual fund managers are choosing their portfolios can be valuable information for investors, if stocks picked by skilled fund managers really outperform those picked by unskilled managers. But it has been difficult to test this hypothesis, since it is not clear how to use fund holdings to pick stocks.

Living through a climate-related disaster can be a harrowing experience for anyone. For professional money managers, it can even impact their investment decisions.

New research refutes a critique of a way to evaluate mutual fund performance.

New research from Maryland Smith pioneers a way to sift through the thousands of active mutual funds to winnow them down to a set of the best ones to invest in.

How do U.S. money market funds respond to a crisis? New research explores what happened during the European debt crisis that spiraled when Greece required a bailout.

What stocks do the smartest fund managers love, and are they worth knowing? Investors Chronicle recently posed this question and revisited a Russell Wermers co-authored study for an answer.  

Do ETFs contribute to market volatility? New research may hold the answer.