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David T. Robinson

Erling Persson Visiting Professor 2019-2024 – Duke University

David T. Robinson is The James and Gail Vander Weide Professor of Finance Fuqua School of Business at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and an Erling Persson Visiting Professor at SSE, Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology.

He is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of private equity, venture capital and entrepreneurial finance. His work has appeared in leading academic journals in finance and economics and has been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and The Economist. 

Professor Robinson is a scientific advisor to the Swedish House of Finance in Stockholm, Sweden, the Private Equity Research Council, the Private Capital Research Institute, as well as a number of private equity firms and technology startups.  He is the former Vice Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Private Capital.

He earned his PhD and MBA degrees at the University of Chicago, a Master of Science from the London School of Economics,  a Bachelor of Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an honorary doctorate from the Stockholm School of Economics. Prior to joining Duke University he was a Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia University.

Selected Publications

Valuation waves and merger activity: The empirical evidence
M Rhodes–Kropf, DT Robinson, S Viswanathan
Journal of Financial Economics 77 (3), 561-603

Optimism and economic choice
M Puri, DT Robinson
Journal of Financial Economics 86 (1), 71-99

Industry concentration and average stock returns
K Hou, DT Robinson
The Journal of Finance 61 (4), 1927-1956

The capital structure decisions of new firms
AM Robb, DT Robinson
The Review of Financial Studies 27 (1), 153-179

The market for mergers and the boundaries of the firm
M Rhodes‐Kropf, DT Robinson
The Journal of Finance 63 (3), 1169-1211

What is the price of hubris? Using takeover battles to infer overpayments and synergies
P Hietala, SN Kaplan, DT Robinson
National Bureau of Economic Research

Network effects in the governance of strategic alliances
DT Robinson, TE Stuart
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 23 (1), 242-273