Lubos Pastor, Ph.D., a Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow and Charles P. McQuaid Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, visited the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise as a distinguished fellow on Thursday, October 6. His visit focused on the climate concerns in business, the trade-offs of green stocks and the returns of ESG investing.
Professor Pastor’s research focuses mostly on financial markets and asset management, and he has written on a broad range of topics such as liquidity risk, political risk, sustainable investing, stock price bubbles, return predictability, portfolio choice, performance evaluation, returns to scale in asset management, indexing, learning, technological revolutions, income inequality, populism, quantitative easing, and IPOs. Outside the classroom, he is a member of the Bank Board of the National Bank of Slovakia, director of the European Finance Association, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and research fellow at the Center for Economic Policy and Research.
Following his public presentation, he joined the Kenan Scholars for a small group conversation. Dr. Pastor’s visit was part of our series on stakeholder capitalism and ESG investing. Stakeholder capitalism is the idea that businesses would improve societal outcomes by focusing on a mandate broader than that which benefits shareholders alone. This synthesizes the interests of both private shareholders and the greater public. Explorations within this central idea build upon what Kenan Scholars learn in class and expose them to real-world applications of the Kenan Flagler curriculum.
Following the conversation, scholars had the opportunity to ask Professor Pastor any questions and inquire more about his research. The afternoon concluded with a small networking social that allowed scholars to connect with Dr. Pastor and Kenan Institute staff. We are grateful to Dr. Pastor for his time and shared insights which heightened Kenan Scholars understanding of ESG investing and the role of business in providing solutions to societal issues.