Michael J. Brennan (born November 14, 1942) is emeritus professor of finance at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.^[1] Brennan co-designed the Brennan-Schwartz interest rate model^[2] and was a pioneer of real options theory.^[3] His writings on real options and asset pricing, corporate finance, derivative securities, market microstructure, the role of information in capital markets, and risk management have been published extensively.

He is a former president of the American Finance Association, and has served as editor of the Journal of Finance and was the founding editor of the Review of Financial Studies; the Michael Brennan Award is named for him. He was a founding partner and director of the Real Options Group since its inception. He has served as consultant to businesses and governments in the USA and Canada. He was previously a professor at the London Business School.

Professor Brennan holds a B.Phil. in Economics (1964) from Oxford University, an MBA (1967) from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. in Business (1970) from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

On May 22, 2011, Brennan was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Notre Dame.^[4]

Selected publications

• Brennan, M.J., The Role of Learning in Dynamic Portfolio Decisions, European Finance Review, 1, 295-306 (1998).
• Brennan, M.J. and Torous, W.N., Individual Decision Making and Investor Welfare, Economic Notes, 28, 2, 119-143 (July 1999).
• Brennan, M.J., Chordia, T. and Subrahmanyam, A., Alternative Factor Specifications, Security Characteristics, and the Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns, Journal of Financial Economics, 49, 3, 345-373 (September 1998).
• Brennan, M.J. and Franks, J.R., Underpricing, Ownership and Control in Initial Public Offerings of Equity Securities in the UK, Journal of Financial Economics, 45, 391-413 (September 1997).