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Professor Kevin Keasey

Profile

Academic

I have spent my academic career focusing on the four pillars of Research and PhD Supervision, Leadership, Curriculum Development and Teaching, with a consistent emphasis on liberal economic principles and market dynamics. The relative importance of these four pillars has varied across my career depending on the demands and opportunities I have faced.

Research and PhD Supervision

14,799 Citations, 59 H-Index and 144 10 Index.

My academic career has been guided throughout by the tenets of liberal economic thinking, particularly the Austrian School and its sister subject of Public Choice theory, emphasizing the ethical dimensions of individual decision-making, institutional design, and the moral role of markets in promoting freedom and prosperity. With this academic heritage I have analysed major economic and societal issues as they have arisen. The common threads throughout the phases are my continued interest in trying to understand the workings and interplay of individuals, firms, banks and markets, and the roles of accounting, regulation and governance.

My research outputs comprise 14 books, etc. across a range of subjects and a 150 plus articles in journals, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Corporate Finance, Accounting, Organizations and Society, and The Economic Journal.

While there are many ways to categorise a research career of more than four decades, I have decided to summarise it via the main phases and just a few significant publications under each phase. Most of my publications are joint with a series of wonderful co-authors.

  1. Small Firms and Enterprise

My early work examined how small firms could regenerate economic activity in post-industrial Britain. This research combined empirical analysis of firm performance, ownership, and managerial labour markets, helping establish the foundations of modern SME finance and entrepreneurship scholarship. This led to three key studies and a range of associated publications. The three books below capture the thinking that formed this part of my career.

  1. Storey, D. J., Keasey, K., Watson, R., & Wynarczyk, P. (1987). The Performance of Small Firms. Croom Helm. ISBN 0-7099-4411-X.

This book provided one of the first major empirical studies of small firm performance in the UK. It helped establish the basis for SME policy design, particularly around job creation and survivability.

  1. Keasey, K., & Watson, R. (1993). Small Firm Management: Ownership, Finance and Performance. Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-17981-X.

This work introduced a financial framework for understanding SME ownership and funding structures.

  1. Storey, D. J., Keasey, K., H. Short, Watson, R., & Wynarczyk, P. (1993) Managerial Labour Markets in Small and Medium-Enterprises, Routledge, (ISBN 0-415-10022-4).

This is the first investigation into how managerial labour markets work for small firms.

  1. Corporate Governance

My research in corporate governance evolved from my earlier work on SME ownership and firm control, extending into the governance structures of larger corporations and institutional frameworks. This work reflected a growing interest in how firms could be held accountable in increasingly deregulated environments, and how governance mechanisms intersected with investor behaviour, managerial incentives, and policy reform.

  1. Keasey, K., & Wright, M. (Eds.) (1997). Corporate Governance: Responsibilities, Risks and Remuneration. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-97021-2.

This volume helped to shape early debates about UK governance reform, focusing on executive pay, accountability, and shareholder responsibilities.

  1. Short, H., Zhang, H., & Keasey, K. (2002). The link between dividend policy and institutional ownership. Journal of Corporate Finance, 8(2), 105–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0929-1199(01)00030-X

This paper revealed how institutional investors influence dividend policy to reduce agency conflicts.

  1. Short, H., & Keasey, K. (1999). Managerial ownership and the performance of firms: Evidence from the UK. Journal of Corporate Finance, 5(1), 79–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0929-1199(98)00016-9

An early UK empirical paper exploring how management equity influences firm value.

  1. Bank Risk and Governance

In response to the global financial crisis, I turned to systemic risk and the governance of banking institutions. This work addressed the consequences of excessive risk-taking, the design of regulatory safeguards, and the interplay between corporate governance and financial stability.

  1. Spokeviciute, L., Vallascas, F., & Keasey, K. (2019). Do financial crises cleanse the banking industry? Evidence from US commercial bank exits during two crises. Journal of Banking & Finance, 99(C), 222–236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2018.11.012

This paper analyses how different financial crises affect market discipline and exit behaviour in the banking sector. It provides important empirical evidence on the conditions under which financial systems self-correct.

  1. Hagendorff, J., Vallascas, F., & Keasey, K. (2017). When banks grow too big for their national economies: Tail risks, risk channels and government guarantees. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 52(5), 1609–1649. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022109017000666

This article addresses systemic financial risk caused by bank scale relative to national economies. It introduces the concept of scale fragility and contributes directly to too-big-to-fail regulatory reform.

  1. Srivastav, A., Vallascas, F., Mollah, S., & Keasey, K. (2017). CEO turnover in large banks: Does tail risk matter? Journal of Accounting and Economics, 64(1), 37–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacceco.2017.06.002

This study links CEO turnover to tail-risk exposure in large banks, revealing deficiencies in board oversight under high uncertainty. It informs discussions on executive accountability in systemically important financial institutions.

  1. Climate Change, Governance and Finance

My most recent research explores how financial institutions and market-based governance can be harnessed to address climate change. This work investigates the relationship between environmental policies, corporate behaviour, and the incentives shaped by investors, analysts, and procurement practices.

  1. Chen, J., Jing, C., Keasey, K., & Xu, B. (2025). Government procurement and corporate environmental policies. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. [In press]

This study evaluates how state procurement encourages environmentally responsible corporate behaviour.

  1. Jing, C., Lim, I., Keasey, K., & Xu, B. (2025). Analyst coverage and corporate environmental policies. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. [In press]

This paper shows how analyst oversight influences firms’ environmental practices. It positions financial analysts as informal drivers of ESG reform within capital markets.

The research area I have not included in the above is how equity markets work, their efficiency, their impact, the role of information, etc. The reason I have not included it as a phase is because it has fascinated me since the start of my career and it continues to do so – it is more a passion than a phase of my research career. My latest paper with Charlie Cai and Peng Li on Trended Momentum is a good example – it explores how simply identifiable trends lead to more momentum.

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.

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 three institutions institutes/research centres: the International Banking Institute (1997), the Centre for Advanced Studies in Finance (2005) and the Leeds Enterprise Centre (2009).

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

I have taught approximately three modules per annum across the whole range of accounting, finance and banking subjects at all levels, always emphasizing critical thinking and ethical decision-making. My teaching approach integrates rigorous academic scholarship with extensive practical experience (see below), allowing me to offer students a unique perspective that bridges theory and real-world application. Students appreciate the balance of the academic and the practical, and I have been awarded the Dean’s prize for teaching and supervision 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 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, and institutional frameworks eventually led to me undertaking roles outside of academia. From the mid 90s to the Global Financial Crisis I developed extensive experience as an entrepreneur (in both listed and private firms), corporate director (on Main and Aim listed companies) and 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