The Bendheim Center for Finance is an interdisciplinary research center established by Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in 1998.

History

In 1998, Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 established the Bendheim Center for Finance to encourage interdisciplinary research in finance from a quantitative or mathematical perspective. The Center's research activities focus on the study of financial markets and asset prices, financial structure of firms, commercial banks and other financial intermediaries, and linkages between financial economics and such fields as engineering, operations research

Operations research

Operations research is an interdisciplinary mathematical science that focuses on the effective use of technology by organizations...

, mathematics, computer science, psychology and public policy. "Proponents of the program cited similar 'professionally-oriented mathematical and computational finance programs' at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 and other peer institutions." Ben Bernanke

Ben Bernanke

Ben Shalom Bernanke is an American economist, and the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. During his tenure as Chairman, Bernanke has overseen the response of the Federal Reserve to late-2000s financial crisis....

 is credited as the founder of the center.

Research

Most recently, the Bendheim Center was featured in a Wall Street Journal article about bubbles. The article featured three "young stars" — Harrison Hong, for his work on "how differences of opinion and short-sales constraints can help start a bubble, and analysts' role in forming a bubble;" Wei Xiong, for his work on "how investors' disparate beliefs and overconfidence lead to frequent trading in bubble periods;" Markus Brunnermeier

Markus Brunnermeier

Markus K. Brunnermeier is a financial economist specializing in financial crises and panics. His work focuses on the role financial frictions play in the formation and collapse of economic bubbles...

, for his research "suggesting rational investors are better off riding a bubble than trying to attack it."

Facilities

The Bendheim Center for Finance is located in former Dial Lodge on Prospect Avenue, adjacent to the Economics Department's Fisher Hall and close to the Operations Research and Financial Engineering department.

History of the undergraduate certificate

In the fall of 1999, BCF began offering a certificate in finance, awarding the first certificates in June 2000.

Number of certificates awarded per year:

2000: 59	2001: 82	2002: 86	2003: 128	2004: 134	2005: 140	2006: 152

Masters degree

The Bendheim Center for Finance offers a Masters in Finance (MFin) degree that can be completed in 1 year (10 courses) or 2 years (16 courses). Only students with prior finance training or work experience are admitted to the 1 year option.

2006: 418 applications, 46 acceptances (11%), 27 enrollees (59%).

2007: 459 applications, 48 acceptances (10%).

2008: 650 applications, 40 acceptances (7%), 30 enrollees (75%).

The New York Sun

New York Sun

The New York Sun was a weekday daily newspaper published in New York City from 2002 to 2008. When it debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of an otherwise unrelated earlier New York paper, The Sun , it became the first general-interest broadsheet newspaper to be started...

 claims that it is a popular alternative to an MBA, particularly for people wishing to go into trading and hedge fund jobs.http://www.nysun.com/article/34738

History of the MFin degree

The Bendheim Center for Finance began offering a Masters in Finance degree in 2001, awarding the first degrees in June 2002.

Number of MFin degrees awarded per year:

2002: 4	2003: X	2004: X	2005: 4	2006: 18

Notable faculty (current and former)

• Ben Bernanke
  Ben Bernanke
  Ben Shalom Bernanke is an American economist, and the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. During his tenure as Chairman, Bernanke has overseen the response of the Federal Reserve to late-2000s financial crisis....
  
   — Federal Reserve Chairman; former Chairman of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers
• Alan Blinder
  Alan Blinder
  Alan Stuart Blinder is an American economist. He serves at Princeton University as the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs in the Economics Department, Vice Chairman of The Observatory Group, and as co-director of Princeton’s Center for Economic Policy Studies,...
  
   — former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman
• Burton Malkiel
  Burton Malkiel
  Burton Gordon Malkiel is an American economist and writer, most famous for his classic finance book A Random Walk Down Wall Street...
  
   — former Dean of the Yale School of Management
  Yale School of Management
  The Yale School of Management is the graduate business school of Yale University and is located on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. The School offers Master of Business Administration and Ph.D. degree programs. As of January 2011, 454 students were enrolled in its MBA...
  
  ; author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street
  A Random Walk Down Wall Street
  A Random Walk Down Wall Street, written by Burton Malkiel, a Princeton economist, is an influential book on the subject of stock markets which introduced the random walk hypothesis. Malkiel argues that asset prices typically exhibit signs of random walk and that one cannot consistently outperform...
  
  
• Daniel Kahneman
  Daniel Kahneman
  Daniel Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel laureate. He is notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, behavioral economics and hedonic psychology....
  
  
• Harrison Hong — young star
• Wei Xiong — young star
• Markus Brunnermeier
  Markus Brunnermeier
  Markus K. Brunnermeier is a financial economist specializing in financial crises and panics. His work focuses on the role financial frictions play in the formation and collapse of economic bubbles...
  
   — young star
• Yacine Ait-Sahalia
• Rene Carmona