David Sovich, Ph.D., CFA

Associate Professor, Ashland Oil Fellow, Phillip Morris Professorship in Business, Director of Graduate Studies - Finance

Education

• Ph.D. and Post-Doc, Washington University in St. Louis, 2019
• B.S., University of Nevada-Reno, 2011

View CV

David Sovich is an associate professor of finance at the University of Kentucky. His research uses large administrative datasets to study questions in household finance and labor economics. David’s research has been published in several top economics and finance journals including American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Public Economics and Management Science. He frequently collaborates with industry professionals and serves as an affiliated academic researcher at Equifax Inc.

Prior to joiningUK, David worked at Washington University in St. Louis as an instructor and a post-doctoral researcher. Before that, he worked at Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) as an associate on the real return portfolio management team.

David holds a Ph.D. in finance from Washington University in St. Louis and a B.S. from the University of Nevada-Reno.

Teaching Expertise:

• Empirical Methods
• Options
• Futures

Research Expertise:

• Household Credit
• Labor Economics

Selected Publications:

• Hankins, Momeni, and Sovich. 2026. “Consumer Credit and the Incidence of Tariffs: Evidence from the Auto Industry”. American Economic Review, 116 (2), 627-673.
• Hamdi, Kalda, and Sovich. 2025. “The Labor Market Consequences of Student Loan Forbearance”. Management Science, 2025, 71 (11), 9856-9865.
• Hamdi, Kalda, and Sovich. 2025. “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Costs and Benefits of Pandemic Unemployment Insurance”. Journal of Public Economics, 2025, 242.
• Gopalan, Hamilton, Sabat, and Sovich. 2024. “Aversion to Student Debt? Evidence from Low-Wage Workers”. Journal of Finance, 2024, 79 (2), 1249-1295.
• Gopalan, Hamilton, Kalda, and Sovich. 2021. “Home Equity and Labor Income: The Role of Constrained Mobility”. Review of Financial Studies, 2021, 34 (10), 4619-4662.