Jan Bena
Jan Bena is Associate Professor of Finance and Bank of Montréal Chair in International Finance at UBC Sauder School of Business. His research explores how firms innovate and grow, and how finance and technological change affect entrepreneurs and workers. His work has earned best-paper awards and appeared in leading finance journals; recent projects examine generative AI and business creation. An educator and doctoral mentor, he received UBC Sauder’s Alumni Talking Stick Award for pedagogical innovation in 2021. He is Academic Director of the Portfolio Management Foundation program and Sauder Business Academy, and previously led the Finance Division and its doctoral program. He serves as an associate editor of The Journal of Finance and The Review of Corporate Finance Studies and is a past president of the Northern Finance Association. He holds doctorates from the London School of Economics and CERGE-EI at Charles University.
Selected Publications
- Jan Bena (2026), "Ideas, Inventors, and Deals: The Innovation-M&A Nexus", Annual Review of Financial Economics, Volume 18, accepted.
- Jan Bena, Bo Bian and Huan Tang (2026), “Technological Obsolescence Risk in Household Credit: Evidence from the Transition to Electric Mobility”, Journal of Financial Economics, accepted.
- Jan Bena and Elena Simintzi (2025), “Machines Could Not Compete with Chinese Labor: Evidence from U.S. Firms’ Innovation”, Review of Finance, Volume 19, Issue 6, p. 1619–1661, (Editor’s Choice).
- Jan Bena, Hernan Ortiz-Molina and Elena Simintzi (2022), “Shielding Firm Value: Employment Protection and Process Innovation” , Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 146, Issue 2, p. 637-664.
- Jan Bena, Serdar Dinc, and Isil Erel (2022), “The International Propagation of Economic Downturns Through Multinational Companies: The Real Economy Channel”, Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 146, Issue 1, p. 277-304.