Congratulations to Emma Wang, my PhD student, on passing her viva yesterday. Dr Wang's thesis consists of three essays on different aspects of cross-border mergers. She has done some really nice work looking at the effect of takeover law on cross-border mergers, which will hopefully find a wider audience. Emma is a former graduate of the MSc Finance at Queen's. She has just started an academic position at the University of Northampton.
My colleague and former PhD student Gareth Campbell has created a website about the British Railway Mania - click here . This episode has been described by the Economist as probably the greatest bubble in human history. Gareth's website provides background on the Mania and posits some explanations for the 'bubble'. In his explanation of why the bubble happened, Gareth places a lot of emphasis on investor myopia regarding future dividends and uncalled capital. His study of investors during the episode does not support the view that this episode was fuelled by naive and irrational investors.