Kathleen Weiss Hanley

Kathleen Weiss Hanley joined the faculty of Lehigh University in 2015 as the Bolton-Perella endowed chair in finance. She is the former director of the Center for Financial Services and co-director of the FinTech minor. 

From 2011 to 2013, Professor Hanley served as deputy chief economist at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and deputy director of the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis. In these roles, she oversaw the integration of economic analysis into SEC policymaking and rule-making, including the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. She also directed the division’s research activities, data analytics, and risk assessment initiatives. Professor Hanley annually organizes the Conference on Financial Market Regulation in collaboration with the SEC and the University of Virginia. 

Prior to joining Lehigh, Professor Hanley was a senior economist in the Risk Analysis Section at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and a senior financial economist at the SEC. She previously held faculty appointments at the University of Maryland, where she was an associate professor with tenure, and the University of Michigan, where she was an assistant professor. She has also served as a senior fellow at the Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation.

Professor Hanley serves as executive secretary and treasurer of the American Finance Association and is the former executive director of the Financial Economists Roundtable. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board. She previously served as an editor of the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy and executive editor of the Quarterly Journal of Finance. She is a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute and a program fellow in the Program on Law and Economics of Capital Markets, a joint initiative of Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School. 

Her research focuses on capital formation, financial regulation, and market pricing. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Management Science, and Journal of Accounting Research.

Education

• Indiana University, B.S.
• University of Florida, Ph.D.

Research Interests

• Corporate finance 
• Regulation 
• Systemic risk 
• Capital markets

• Aleksandra Rzeznik, Kathleen Weiss Hanley, and Lorianna Pelizzon. 2026.Investor Reliance on ESG Ratings and Stock Price Performance. forthcoming Management Science.
• Reena Aggarwal, Kathleen Weiss Hanley, and Xiaofei Zhao. 2026.  The Role of “Expert Reviewers” in Private Capital Markets. forthcoming New Developments in Equity Financing and Strategic Exits: Navigating the Path to Profits. ed. T. Walker, J. Menard, M. Kooli, and A. Sadatim.
• Scott Bauguess, Jack Cooney, and Kathleen Weiss Hanley. 2025. The Demand For Information in Newly Issued Securities. Quarterly Journal of Finance 15: 1-48.
• Giulio Girardi, Kathleen Weiss Hanley, Stanislava Nikolova, Lorianna Pelizzon and Mila Getmansky Sherman. 2021. Portfolio Similarity and Asset Liquidation in the Insurance Industry. Journal of Financial Economics 142: 69-96.
• Kathleen Weiss Hanley and Stanislava Nikolova. 2020. Rethinking the Use of Credit Ratings in Capital Regulation. Review of Corporate Finance Studies 10: 347-401.
• Edward, Franklin, Kathleen Weiss Hanley, Robert Litan, and Roman Weil. 2019. Crypto Assets Require Better Regulation: Statement of the Financial Economists Roundtable on Crypto Assets. Financial Analysts Journal 75: 14-19.
• Kathleen Weiss Hanley and Gerard Hoberg, 2019, Dynamic Interpretation of Emerging Risks in the Financial Sector, Review of Financial Studies 32: 4543-4603.
  • Editor's Choice (lead article)
• Hanley, Kathleen Weiss, Alan Jagolinzer and Stanislava Nikolova. 2018. Strategic Reporting of Fair Value Levels. Journal of Accounting and Economics 66: 25-45.
• Chaplinsky, Susan, Kathleen Weiss Hanley and S. Katie Moon. 2017. The JOBS Act and the Costs of Going Public.  Journal of Accounting Research 55: 795-836.
• Caglio, Cecilia, Kathleen Weiss Hanley and Jennifer Marietta-Westberg. 2016. Going Public Abroad. Journal of Corporate Finance 41: 103-122.
• Hanley, Kathleen Weiss, and Gerard Hoberg. 2012. Litigation Risk, Strategic Disclosure and the Underpricing of Initial Public Offerings. Journal of Financial Economics 103: 235-254.
• Edwards, Amy, and Kathleen Weiss Hanley. 2010. Short Selling in Initial Public Offerings. Journal of Financial Economics 98: 21-39.
• Hanley, Kathleen Weiss, and Gerard Hoberg. 2010. The Information Content of IPO Prospectuses. Review of Financial Studies 23: 2821-2864.
• Hanley, Kathleen Weiss, Charles MC Lee, and Paul Seguin. 1996. The Marketing of Closed-end Fund IPOs: Evidence from Transactions Data. Journal of Financial Intermediation 5: 127-159.
• Hanley, Kathleen Weiss, and Jr. William Wilhelm. 1995. Evidence on the Strategic Allocation of Initial Public Offerings. Journal of Financial Economics 37: 239-257.
• Hanley, Kathleen Weiss, Arun Kumar, and Paul Seguin. 1993. Price Stabilization in the Market for New Issues. Journal of Financial Economics 34: 177-197.
• Hanley, Kathleen Weiss. 1993. The Underpricing of Initial Public Offerings and the Partial Adjustment Phenomenon. Journal of Financial Economics 34: 231-250.
• Megginson, William, and Kathleen Weiss. 1991. Venture Capitalist Certification in Initial Public Offerings. Journal of Finance 46: 879-903.
• Weiss, Kathleen. 1989. The Post-Offering Price Performance of Closed-End Funds. Financial Management 18: 57-67.
• Smith, Stephen, Deborah Wright Gregory, and Kathleen Weiss. 1987. A Note on Quantity Versus Price Risk and the Theory of Financial Intermediation. Journal of Finance 42: 1377-1383.

Working Papers

• Donald E. Bowen, III, Kathleen Weiss Hanley, Sungjoung Kwon, William Mann, and Qianqian Yu, Patent Disclosure and Reliance on External Financing
• Kathleen Weiss Hanley and Qianqian Yu. Strategic Regulatory Non-Disclosure: The Case of the Missing Form D.
• Kelly Nianyun Cai, Kathleen Weiss Hanley, Alan Guoming Huang and Xiaofei Zhao, The Pricing of New Corporate Debt Issues.

NSF Grant

• Highlights
• Hanley and Hoberg Data Library

Kathleen Weiss Hanley and Gerard Hoberg. Dynamic Interpretation of Emerging Risks in the Financial Sector. forthcoming Review of Financial Studies.

OFR/NSF Grant EAGER: III: CIFRAM: Dynamic Identification and Interpretation of Emerging Systemic Risks Using Textual Analysis (Gerard Hoberg, University of Southern California)

We use computational linguistics to develop a dynamic, interpretable methodology that can detect emerging risks in the financial sector. Our model can predict heightened risk exposures as early as mid-2005, well in advance of the 2008 financial crisis. Risks related to real estate, prepayment, and commercial paper are elevated. Individual bank exposure strongly predicts returns, bank failure and return volatility. We also document a rise in market instability since 2014 related to sources of funding and mergers and acquisitions. Overall, our model predicts the build-up of emerging risk in the financial system and bank-specific exposures in a timely fashion.