Chris Muscarella studies stock market trading mechanisms and liquidity, intellectual property rights, executive compensation, and venture capital. His research has appeared in a number of academic journals, including the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Corporate Finance, the Journal of Financial Markets, the European Finance Review, and the Journal of Financial Economics. “I have published in a couple of different areas of corporate finance,” explains Muscarella. “I often obtain research ideas by reading the Wall Street Journal and finding stories about companies that are taking some corporate action that I don’t understand. Hopefully, my papers lead to a better understanding of why companies do some of the things they do.”
Muscarella has been president of the Financial Management Association, program chair of the Financial Management Association Annual Meetings, associate editor of the Journal of Financial Research, and northeast regional director of the Financial Management Association. He has served as associate editor for the Survey and Synthesis Series, put out by the Financial Management Association, and as an ad hoc reviewer for numerous journals.
He also has taught at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia as well as served as a Senior Financial Economist, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
He was elected to Beta Gama Sigma in 1976 and served as SMU Chapter President of the organization from 1985 to 1990. He is a member of the American Finance Association, and the Financial Management Association.
Muscarella is Professor of Finance and L. W. ‘Roy’ and Mary Lois Clark Teaching Fellow at Penn State University. He has received the Penn State MBA Teaching Excellence Award 22 times. BusinessWeek has ranked him as a four-star professor in multiple editions of their Guide to the Best Business Schools. “In my teaching I often draw on my experiences at the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of my favorite classroom topics is insider trading and I can use my experiences helping to prosecute such cases at the SEC.”
He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1974, an MBA in finance in 1976 from the University of Notre Dame, and a PhD in finance in 1983 from Purdue University.
Muscarella is an amateur genealogist and a fan of Notre Dame football.