AMERICAN FINANCE ASSOCIATION

Minutes of the Annual Membership Meeting

January 4, 1998

The Fifty-Eighth Annual Membership Meeting was held at the SheratonChicago Hotel and Towers in Chicago, Illinois on January 4, 1998 at 5:00p.m. Brief comments on the financial status of the Association were offeredby Executive Secretary and Treasurer Michael Keenan, who then turned themeeting over to President Hayne E. Leland for the balance of the businessmeeting.

President Leland welcomed the members to the meeting. He brief ly re-ported on the activities of the Association and Board for the year. A sum-mary of those comments follows.

The results of the 1997 election for new officers and directors of the As-sociation for the year beginning at the end of the January meeting are asfollows:

President Edwin J. EltonPresident-Elect Hans R. StollVice President Franklin Allen

Director Bernard DumasDirector Robert A. JarrowDirector A. Craig MacKinlay

In addition Robert Whaley agreed to the Board’s request that he continuefor a year to complete the term of Franklin Allen who vacated his regularboard slot. The President thanked those who had agreed to be candidatesand encouraged the membership to continue their participation by voting,by sending in nominations, and by volunteering for the program. The Nom-inations Committee for 1998 will begin its work in the summer. Please sendnominations ~including yourself if you are available! to the chair of the com-mittee President Edwin J. Elton ~at New York University! or to the Execu-tive Secretary’s office immediately.

Several prizes were presented. Journal Editor René Stulz awarded theSmith Breeden prizes for best articles in the Journal of Finance during theperiod December 1996 through September 1997. First Prize went to KentDaniel and Sheridan Titman ~March 1997 JOF!, and Distinguished PaperPrizes went to Owen Lamont ~March 1997 JOF!, and to Darrell Duffie andKenneth J. Singleton ~September 1997 JOF!. Editor Stulz also announcedthat for the prize award at the 1999 Meeting Smith Breeden Associates was

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not only renewing their sponsorship but also increasing the amount of theawards to a first prize level of $10,000 and two distinguished paper prizes of$5,000. He conveyed the thanks of the Board and the Association to DouglasBreeden and Smith Breeden Associates for this extraordinary incentive sup-port of research in finance.

The President thanked the Program Chair Edwin Elton, the program com-mittee ~the Board and Session Chairs!, and others for making the Meeting avery strong one. Over 500 papers and proposals were submitted for the 100slots available on the program including an increased number of submis-sions from foreign countries. Next year’s Program Chair Hans Stoll has be-gun his work on the 1999 Meeting to be held on January 3–5, 1999 in NewYork, New York. The President also offered his thanks to outgoing directorsAnat Admati, Martin J. Gruber, and Krishna Ramaswamy. And the Presi-dent and members present thanked the Executive Secretary and Treasurerfor his years of service 1985–1998, and promised him they really would havea new secretary in place before the 1999 New York meeting.

The Board accepted the recommendation of the Fisher Black Committeeon the process for forming the first prize selection committee. The prizecommittee will be activated as soon as the fund-raising process led by JohnCox is completed.

The Board accepted in principle certain recommendations made by jour-nal editor René Stulz and his associate editors to broaden the rights of au-thors of Journal of Finance articles to make use of electronic versions oftheir published articles. René Stulz and Hans Stoll will head a team to workout certain details on the copyright assignment form that are consistentwith author needs, Association needs, and our contract with Blackwell Pub-lishers. Guidelines will also be developed on annotating already publishedarticles or appending new results to the electronic versions of those articles.The Stoll committee will also consider jointly with Blackwell the pricingstrategy for the commercial use of Journal of Finance articles.

A recommendation from Edwin Elton was discussed that the Board con-sider whether the American Finance Association should create a “society ofdistinguished finance fellows” similar to the honorary fellow designation othersocieties have developed. The Board was intrigued by the proposal and askedPresident-Elect Elton to appoint a committee to study the matter and reportback at the 1999 meeting. Elton also reported to the Board that the searchfor the next Executive Secretary and Treasurer was progressing and that heexpected the Executive Committee to have a recommendation ready by April.

There being no further business, the business meeting was concluded at5:30 p.m. At the conclusion of the business meeting the Program Chair Ed-win Elton introduced Hayne E. Leland for his Presidential Address.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael KeenanExecutive Secretary and Treasurer

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