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Professor Kevin Keasey

Profile

BA, MA & PhD (All Econ)

Academic

I have spent my academic career focusing on the four pillars of Leadership, Research and PhD Supervision, Curriculum Development and Teaching.  The relative importance of these pillars has varied across my career depending on the demands and opportunities I have faced.  During recent years I have found more time to focus on the very enjoyable activities of research and supervision. 

Leadership

Since being appointed to the Chair in Accounting and Finance (A&F) at the University of Leeds in the late eighties (I was previously Reader in A&F at the University of Warwick), I have been the head of the A&F department on a number of occasions, with more than 17 years of total service.  I finished my last term of office in 2017, at that time the A&F department achieved the unique position of being ranked Number 1 in all of the UK university league tables.

Between the periods of being Head, I founded the International Banking Institute (1997), the Centre for Advanced Studies in Finance (2005) and the Leeds Enterprise Centre (2009).

Research and PhD Supervision

14,010 Citations, 59 H-Index and 142 10 Index.

My research career has had a number of overlapping phases.  The common threads throughout the phases are my continued interest in trying to understand the workings and interplay of firms, banks and markets, and the roles of accounting, regulation and governance.  My research achievements have been noted in a number of rankings.  For example, I was ranked 91 globally in 2009 for publications in the top 25 accounting journals (J. Heck, ‘Most Prolific Authors in the Accounting Literature over the Past Half Century: 1959-2008’, SSRN) and more recently, the Accounting and Finance citations (AD Scientific Research 2023) ranked me as 6 in the UK, 14 in Europe and 67 globally. 

The above research recognition is based on 14 books, etc. across a range of subjects and a large number of articles in leading international journals such as JAE, JFQA, JMCB, JCF, AOS, EJ, etc.  Recent selected articles include:

  • ‘Government Procurement and Corporate Environmental Policies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming, (with J. Chen, C. Jing and B. Xu).
  • ‘Analyst Coverage and Corporate Environmental Policies’,  Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming, (with C. Jing, I. Lim  and B. Xu).
  • ‘Market Development, Information Diffusion and the Global Anomaly Puzzle’, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2023, 58, 104-147, (with L. Peng, C. Cai and Q. Zhang).
  • ‘When Banks Grow Too Big for their National Economies: Tail Risks, Risk Channels and Government Guarantees’, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2018, 52, 5, 1-26, (with J. Hagendorff and F. Vallascas).

Alongside and part of my research career, has been the supervision of over 50 PhD students, many now occupying senior positions in academia and the corporate world. 

Finally, I have led a number of externally funded research projects with a value in excess of £3m.

Curriculum Development

I have had a long history of curriculum development and innovation.  In the early to the mid 1980s I was involved with developing some of earliest MBAs at the Universities of Newcastle and Nottingham.  This was followed by my involvement in the highly innovative Distance Learning and Far East MBAs at Warwick University. I took the lessons learned from this experience to jointly lead the development of the Executive and Singapore MBAs at the University of Leeds. I jointly established Leeds University Management School to host these activities – this eventually became the foundation part of Leeds University Business School (LUBS).  I also initiated in the early 1990s the first taught MA programme in the School – the MA in Economics and Finance.  Working with other faculties I have since initiated other very successful and innovative taught MSc programmes – Mathematics and Finance, and Law and Finance.

In addition to the above, I developed a number of bespoke executive programmes for external organisations – the largest of which was the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Financial Sector Scheme for the former USSR (to the value of £4.5m in current terms).

Teaching

Given my background and research interests, it is not surprising I have taught across the whole range of accounting, finance and banking subjects at all levels.  It is interesting how matters sometimes come full circle.  I was fortunate to be taught industrial and public economics at the MA level in 1978/79 by some exceptional economists (Prof Mike Jones-Lee, Prof Robert Sugden, etc.).  The MA was thought to be highly specialised but the topics taught are now at the core of the sustainability debate and literature.  As I prepare a new third year module on sustainable banking and investment, the recent articles in the top journals are revisiting many of the arguments I was exposed to all those years ago.  This shows the power of a rigorous and challenging postgraduate degree.  I bring a combination of academic knowledge and practical experience (see below) to my teaching. Students appreciate the balance of the academic and the practical, and I have been awarded the Dean’s prize for teaching on more than one occasion and I am often nominated for teaching awards.  Recent comments (2023) in terms of nominations include:

Academic Personal Tutor/Supervisor

“I am nominating Kevin Keasey for an award in recognition of his exceptional performance as a lecturer in the "Banks and Banking Systems" module. Throughout the course, Kevin demonstrated outstanding professionalism and an unwavering commitment to his students. He was consistently engaging, cool, friendly, and informative, fostering a positive and supportive learning environment.”

Inspirational Teaching/Supervisor

“Kevin Keasey is a great lecturer, who fully engages his class every time he speaks. Highly respected by all of his students for his unparalleled knowledge, experience, and overall expertise. He has led a long a and very varied career, which shines through in his lectures, which are full of interesting anecdotes and stories.”

Professional

My academic interests in firms, governance, etc. eventually led to me undertaking roles in the real economy.  From the mid 90s to the Global Financial Crisis I developed extensive experience as an entrepreneur (listed and private), a corporate director (Main and Aim listed) and a mentor to senior executives in the private and public sectors.  I have been actively involved in all parts of the corporate life cycle from many perspectives (running and being a director of companies, the provision of private equity funding, sitting on the Northern Panel of the Stock Exchange, being a judge of Entrepreneur of the Year, etc.).

 

 

 

Responsibilities

  • Director, International Banking Institute (IBI)
  • Director, Centre for Advanced Studies in Finance (CASIF)

Research groups and institutes

  • Centre for Advanced Studies in Finance
  • International Banking Institute

Current postgraduate researchers