Professor Paul Kofman

Professor Paul Kofman is Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics and Sidney Myer Chair of Commerce. He is responsible for all faculty matters and is a Professor of Finance.

He holds a PhD in Economics (1991) from Erasmus University Rotterdam and came to Australia in 1994 as a Lecturer in Econometrics at Monash University. He joined the University of Melbourne in 2001 as a Professor of Finance after appointments at the University of New South Wales and the University of Technology, Sydney. He was Head of the Department of Finance from 2006 until 2010, then progressed to Deputy Dean in 2010. He was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics in 2012.

Paul has undertaken consultancy work for the European Options Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, the Central European University, several Dutch investment banks, the Dutch Centre for Actuarial Statistics, and the Australian Office of Financial Markets.

His main research interest is in quantitative finance and the ethics of finance; the latter of which he continues to teach. With his colleague and co-author of the book A Matter of Trust Clare Payne, they introduced Ethics in Finance as one of the first online subjects at the University of Melbourne. With Associate Professor Sean Pinder, Paul designed and developed the first Coursera MOOC specialisation, 'Essentials of Corporate Financial Analysis and Decision Making', in partnership with the Bank of New York Mellon.

Paul has also published papers in international trade, econometrics, and actuarial journals, including the Financial Analysts Journal, the Journal of Applied Econometrics, the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Journal of International Economics, and the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. He has received numerous research grants including ARC discovery and linkage grants. He is an associate editor of the Journal of International Money & Finance.

Paul was one of the founding directors of the ARC-funded Financial Integrity Research Network which to this date provides a strong, cohesive and efficient approach toward supporting research and research training in the Australian finance academic community.

He is a keen long-distance runner and has completed many ultramarathons, including the 78km Cradle Mountain Run in Tasmania and the 8-day 260km Transalpine run from Germany to Italy passing through the Austrian and Swiss Alps climbing (and descending) 16,000m.