The Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research was founded in 1969 through a grant from Oppenheimer & Company in honor of its late partner, Rodney L. White, WG’57 and is one of the oldest financial research centers in the United States. Irwin Friend served as the Center’s Director from its inception until 1986. The Center receives support from its endowment and from annual contributions from its Members.
The mission of the Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research is to promote innovative empirical and theoretical research in financial economics, spanning the financial research interests of all members of the Wharton School Finance and related Departments. The Center’s goals are:
- to assist Wharton School faculty and Ph.D. students in the production of the highest quality financial economics research by funding the acquisition and development of data and other resources necessary for this research;
- to sponsor academic conferences on topics in financial economics (agendas for recent conferences);
- to sponsor a weekly seminar series to serve as a venue for the presentation and critical discussion of current financial economic research by faculty from Wharton and other academic institutions (current seminar schedule);
- to sponsor extended visits by world-renowned economic scholars for intellectual interaction with faculty and Ph.D. students in the Wharton finance department (Rodney L. White Visiting Scholar Program); and
- to sponsor a working paper series featuring current financial economic research (see current and archived working papers here).
The Director of the Center is Donald B. Keim, John B. Neff Professor of Finance.