Mitchell Petersen is the Glen Vasel Professor of Finance and director of the Heizer Center for Private Equity and Venture Capital at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Professor Petersen’s research is in the area of empirical corporate finance. His research topics have included: how small firms are funded and the importance of lending relationships, how information technology has altered the way in which banks lend, how the changes in the supply of capital alter a firm’s access to capital, how firm’s manage risk, and the role of international taxation in the firm’s investment decision. Mitchell was awarded the Smith-Breeden Prize for Outstanding Paper in the Journal of Finance in 1995 (for his paper “The Benefits of Lending Relationships: Evidence from Small Business Data”) and the Michael Brennan Award for Best Paper in the Review of Financial Studies in 1998 (for his paper “Trade Credit: Theories and Evidence”). He was runner-up for the Brennan Award in 2008 (for his paper “Does the Source of Capital Affect Capital Structure”) and 2010 (for his paper “Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches”). He is a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Finance. Professor Petersen was voted the Kellogg Professor of the Year in 2000, the Executive MBA Outstanding Professor in 2008, 2010, and 2011, and Kellogg Alumni Professor of the Year in 2010. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
