Menachem Brenner

Biography

Prof. Brenner's primary areas of research include derivative markets structure, option pricing, inflation expectations, auctions, market efficiency and liquidity. His articles have appeared in leading journals in finance and economics including the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Business, the Journal of Political Economy and the Journal of Monetary Economics. In 1986, he co-invented (with Prof. Galai) the volatility index based on the prices of traded index options and introduced the idea of volatility derivatives, an idea which was implemented 20 years later. He has written more than 60 scholarly articles in diverse areas in finance and economics.

Professor Brenner was a founding editor of the Review of Derivatives Research and has served on several editorial boards and program committees. He is a regular member of the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics nominating committee. He received several grants and the Graham Dodd Award for excellence in financial writing. He was also awarded Stern's Glucksman Prize for the best new research paper in Finance. In addition to working with doctoral students and teaching the popular finance course on "Futures and Options," he served as deputy chairman of the finance department and is currently the director of the Masters in Global Finance program, a joint venture between the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's Business School and NYU Stern.

Before joining Stern, Professor Brenner was a tenured faculty member at the Hebrew University. He has been a Visiting Professor at Berkeley, the University of Bergamo, University of Melbourne and Tel Aviv University.

Professor Brenner also served as an Advisor to the Bank of Israel, the Securities Authority and was a board member of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange where he chaired the committee that recommended the establishment of an Options Market in Israel. He was a floor trader in options and futures at the NYFE and NYSE.

Research Interests

• Financial Markets: Derivative Markets; Structure, Pricing, Hedging, Regulation

Courses Taught

• Advanced Derivatives Applications
• Options and Futures

Academic Background

Ph.D., 1974
Cornell University

M.A, Finance, Economics, 1971
Cornell University

B.S., Economics, 1969
Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Awards & Appointments

Selected Publications

Jin E. Zhang, Jinghong Shu and M.Brenner (2010)
The New Market for Volatility Trading
Journal of Futures Markets

M. Brenner, E. Ou and J. Zhang (2006)
Hedging Volatility Risk
The Journal of Banking and Finance, March 2006, pp. 811-821.

M. Brenner, R. Eldor, and S. Hauser (2001)
The Price of Options Illiquidity
Journal of Finance, April 2001, pp. 789-805.

M. Brenner and D. Galai (1993)
Hedging Volatility in Foreign Currencies
The Journal of Derivatives, Fall 1993, pp. 53-59.

M. Brenner and D. Galai (1989)
New Financial Instruments to Hedge Changes in Volatility
Financial Analysts Journal, July-August 1989, pp. 61-65