Kristine Hankins, Ph.D.

Professor, William E. Seale Endowed Professor of Finance, Interim Associate Dean for Research and Ph.D. Programs, University Research Professor

Education

• Ph.D., University of Florida, 2006
• M.S., Rutgers University, 2002
• B.A., University of Chicago, 1998

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Kristine Hankins is the William E. Seale Professor of Finance, a University Research Professor and interim associate dean for research and Ph.D. programs at the University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, Aalto University and Stockholm School of Economics.

Professor Hankins’s research explores corporate finance and risk management, with a particular focus on how firms navigate uncertainty. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science and Journal of Corporate Finance and recognized with the Jensen Prize (2nd place) for the best corporate finance paper in the Journal of Financial Economics as well as the Emerald Citation for Excellence for high-impact research. She serves as co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Corporate Finance and an associate editor at Management Science. Beyond academia, her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Harvard Business Review and CFA Institute Review.

Kristine earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, graduating with college and departmental honors. She subsequently earned an M.S. in Statistics from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Florida. Before entering academia, she worked in Merrill Lynch’s Private Equity Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Financial Securities Litigation practice, both in New York City.

Teaching Expertise:

• Corporate Finance

Research Expertise:

• Corporate finance
• Risk management
• Cash
• Capital structure
• Tariffs

Selected Publications:

• Consumer Credit and the Incidence of Tariffs: Evidence from the Auto Industry (with Morteza Momeni
  and David Sovich), 2026, American Economic Review 116, 627-673.
• Corporate Responses to Stock Fragility (with Richard Friberg and Itay Goldstein), 2024, Journal
  of Financial Economics 153, 103795.
• Risk Management (with Gerald Hoberg), 2023, Invited chapter in Handbook of Corporate Finance,
  edited by David Denis, Edward Elgar Publishing
• Why Are Companies Sitting on So Much Cash? (with Mitchell Petersen), 2020, Harvard Business
  Review, January 17, 2020.
• Understanding the Rise in Corporate Cash: Precautionary Savings or Foreign Taxes (with Michael
  Faulkender and Mitchell Petersen), 2019, Review of Financial Studies 32, 3299-3334.