CFP Board Center for Financial Planning Announces Best Paper Award Winners

The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2017 Best Paper Awards that were presented during the Center’s inaugural Academic Research Colloquium.

“The Colloquium showcased vibrant, cutting-edge research on financial planning and related disciplines from the U.S. and around the world, and these winning papers are truly representative of all of the great work that is being done to build the body of knowledge for the financial planning profession,” said Marilyn Mohrman-Gillis, the Center’s Executive Director. “Congratulations to each of these winning authors, and to the other academicians and researchers who shared their work at this year’s Colloquium.”

• TD Ameritrade Institutional Best Paper Award in Behavioral Finance – Dr. Ning Tang of San Diego State University and Dr. Timothy (Jun) Lu of Peking University HSBC Business School, for “Social Interaction Effects and Individual Portfolio Choice: Evidence from 401(k) Pension Plan Investors”
• The Northwestern Mutual Best Paper Award in Insurance/Risk Management with Implications for Financial Planning Practice – Dr. Stuart Heckman, CFP® and Mr. Benjamin Strother, both of Kansas State University, for “The Financial Impact and Duration of Disability Across the Lifespan”
• The Merrill Lynch Student Best Paper Award – Maher Alyousif of Texas Tech University, for “Who Seeks Financial Advice?”
• The BMO Wealth Management Best Paper Award in Consumer Finance – Dr. Joe J. Gladstone of the University of Cambridge and Dr. Emily N. Garbinsky of the University of Notre Dame for “The Consumption Consequences of Couples Pooling Financial Resources”
• The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning Best Paper Award in Investments ­­– Dr. David Blanchett, CFP® of Morningstar Investment Management, Dr. Michael Finke of Texas Tech University,  and Dr. Michael Guillemette, CFP® of University of Missouri for “Who Exhibits Time Varying Risk Aversion?”

The award winners were recognized and their papers presented earlier this month during the Center’s inaugural 2017 Academic Research Colloquium for Financial Planning and Related Disciplines in Arlington, Va.

The Best Paper series of awards recognized authors from a variety of disciplines and sub-disciplines that relate to financial planning. The award carried a $2,500 cash prize for the author(s) of each winning paper. 

“The quality of papers submitted for this first Academic Research Colloquium was very high, making for difficult decisions during the double-blind review process,” said Dr. Charles Chaffin, the Center’s Director of Academic Home. “We are grateful to each author who submitted a paper and are happy to recognize the high level of scholarship that is represented in each of the five papers that were recognized with a Best Paper Award.”

The Colloquium gathered the global academic community to showcase rigorous and relevant research within financial planning and related disciplines that directly or indirectly relates to the global financial planning practice and the body of knowledge. The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning hosted the Colloquium in collaboration with the Canadian-based Financial Planning Standards Council and the Financial Planning Standards Board Ltd., owner of the international CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER certification program outside the United States.

The next Colloquium will be held at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel in Arlington, Va. on February 20-22, 2018.