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UW-Madison Finance Professor Takes Sabbatical in Chile
Easter Island, pictured above, is more than 2,000 miles west of mainland Chile. This photo was taken by James Kevern, a finance and international business major at UW-Madison, who studied abroad in Santiago at Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC) in spring 2007.
Finance Professor David Brown of the Wisconsin School of Business is teaching graduate courses in finance again this year. The twist this time is that his students attend the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Adminstrativas (FACEA) of Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC) de Chile in Santiago, Chile, where Brown is taking a year-long sabbatical. He is teaching an MBA course and a course for Masters of Finance students.
Brown’s interest in Latin American financial markets and investment opportunities, especially in Chile, led him to pursue this opportunity during his sabbatical. He learned of the long-standing student-exchange relationship between the Wisconsin School of Business and PUC through Judy Symon Hanson, co-director of International Programs. He then made a presentation at PUC in 2006 and established contacts that led to an offer to take his sabbatical there. PUC’s business school is among the best in South America, according to many rankings.
“My overarching objective is to improve my ability to serve as an expert in and a professor of investment topics,” said Brown. “I wish to broaden my perspective and gain greater knowledge of international finance generally and Latin America specifically.” His research specialties include regulation and stock valuation and trading.
Brown’s stay in Latin America coincides with the development of major changes to Chile’s and Brazil’s stock markets. He is able to closely study proposed changes to Chile’s stock market indexes and reaction to a comprehensive working paper, “Hacia una Nueva Reforma del Mercado de Capitales,” produced by a group of Chilean business and investment leaders recommending changes in the governance and regulation of the country’s markets. “My location in Chile is a benefit, in that I have access to people here that I might not otherwise meet,” said Brown. He also plans to document the extent to which Brazil’s revised stock market structure, completed in 2002, allows new businesses to grow in that country and how it can serve as a model for Chile and other countries. “The important difference is that companies in the new market are subject to a tough set of rules for corporate governance and financial reporting, where the rules are similar to standards in the U.S. and Brazil,” said Brown.
Brown hopes to meet with officers of the Santiago and Sao Paulo stock exchanges, and through his FACEA colleagues has made contact with local business professionals, and other influential people. One of his colleagues is a ‘Chicago Boy,’ an economist who helped alter the economic structure of the Chilean economy in the 1970s and 1980s.
In addition to taking advantage of the research benefits offered by this sabbatical, Brown is learning to speak Spanish and is building relationships with faculty members that he hopes will lead to future research and collaboration. Much of what he learns he will integrate into his courses back at UW-Madison. New topics and lectures may include investment opportunities in Latin American markets and the structures of those markets. “I also expect to speak with more authority about international investment and portfolio management,” he said.
The fresh cultural perspective offered by a year-long stay in another country is another benefit to Brown and his family. “U.S. citizens living at home hear and see things of other countries and cultures through our media, and this naturally includes filtering,” he said. “Living in a foreign country allows one to see events from a new and different perspective.”