Minutes of the 2017 Annual Membership Meeting

• Published date: 01 August 2017
• Date: 01 August 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12532

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE •VOL. LXXII, NO. 4 •AUGUST 2017

AMERICAN FINANCE ASSOCIATION

Minutes of the 2017 Annual Membership Meeting

The Seventy-Seventh Annual Membership Meeting was held at the Shera-

ton Grand Chicago on January 7, 2017 at 5:30 pm. The video of the meeting

has been posted on the AFA website. Executive Secretary and Treasurer Jim

Schallheim called the meeting to order and welcomed those in attendance.

The results of the 2016 election were announced as follows:

President: David Scharfstein

President Elect: Peter DeMarzo

Vice President: David Hirshleifer

Directors: Wei Jiang

Mitchell Petersen

Toni Whited

The Association thanks outgoing Directors for their service: Andrew Metrick,

Jessica Wachter, and Jeff Wurgler.

EST Schallheim reported that the Association’s financial condition remained

strong (see his report in this issue for details). The AFA regular (active) mem-

bership numbers have held steady after last year’s significant increase. Student

membership, alternatively, continued to rise by 37% in 2016 (after a 157% in-

crease in 2015). In sum, our total membership numbers have surpassed the

peak of 10,000 last reached in 2009.

The Ethics Committee created the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics

approved by the Board in September. The new standing Editorial Committee

was approved and members selected. The JF Code Disclosure Policy was also

approved by the Board.

David Scharfstein, the 2017 Program Chair, thanked the 72 session chairs

for their work in selecting papers and discussants. The program consisted of

235 papers which were selected from 1,613 submissions, up slightly from the

previous year. The acceptance rate was 14.6%.

The number of special sessions for 2017 was increased from 5 to 7 and

includes 5 Panel Sessions, the AFA Lecture, and the Ph.D. Poster Session.

The 5 Panel Sessions cover a range of issues relevant to the field of finance.

The panels and panel chairs were as follows:

r“Capital Constraints, Public Policy and Minority Entrepreneurship,” Josh

Lerner

r“Public Pension Funds,” Luis Viceira

r“The New Financial Regulatory Environment and its Implications for Fi-

nancial Markets,” organized by Darrell Duffie, chaired by Deborah Lucas.

DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12532

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