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Photo of O’Brien, William

William O'Brien

Associate Professor

Department of Finance

Pronouns: He/Him/His

Contact

Building & Room:

UH 2124

Address:

601 S. Morgan St., Chicago, IL 60607

Office Phone:

(312) 996-4552

Email:

obrienw@uic.edu

CV Link:

William O'Brien

About

Experience

  • University of Illinois Chicago, College of Business Administration, 2015 - present

Classes Taught

  • Introduction to Managerial Finance

Selected Grants

Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Special Sworn Researcher Program (SSRP), Special Sworn Researcher, 2022-2027

Selected Publications

  • Harris, Jeremiah and William O’Brien, 2025, US multinationals’ alternatives to paying taxes, Journal of Corporate Finance 91, 102722.
  • Harris, Jeremiah and William O’Brien, 2022, Do US firms disguise acquisitions to avoid taxes?, Financial Review 57, 95-127.
    Best Paper Award (Editors’ Choice), Financial Review, 2022.
  • Faccio, Mara and William O’Brien, 2021, Business Groups and Employment, Management Science 67, 3468-3491.
  • Austin, Josh, Jeremiah Harris, and William O’Brien, 2020, Do the Most Prominent Firms Really Make the Worst Deals? How Selection Issues Affect Inferences from M&A Studies, Journal of Banking and Finance, article 105888.
  • Harris, Jeremiah and William O’Brien, 2018, U.S. Worldwide Taxation and Domestic Mergers and Acquisitions, Journal of Accounting and Economics 66, 419-438.
    One of six papers selected for the 2017 Journal of Accounting and Economics Conference (Wharton Business School, Philadelphia, PA).
  • Gulen, Huseyin and William O’Brien, 2017, Option Repricing, Corporate Governance, and the Effect of Shareholder Empowerment, Journal of Financial Economics 125, 389-415.
  • Bodnaruk, Andriy, William O’Brien, and Andrei Simonov, 2016, Captive Finance and Firm’s Competitiveness, Journal of Corporate Finance 27, 210-228.

Notable Honors

2024, Silver Circle Award for Excellence in Teaching, UIC

2020, Innovation in Teaching Award, Runner-up, Financial Management Association (FMA)

2018, Excellence in Teaching Award, UIC Business

2018, Silver Circle Award for Excellence in Teaching, UIC

Education

PhD, Finance, Purdue University (2015)
MS, Economics, Purdue University (2013)
MBA, University of Notre Dame (2010)
BS, Finance, University of Illinois (2000)

Research Currently in Progress

  • "Do U.S. Firms Disguise Acquisitions to Avoid Taxes?" (with Jeremiah Harris)
  • "Comparing the Tax Strategies of U.S. Multinationals" (with Jeremiah Harris)
  • "Detecting Earnings Information in Repurchase Announcements Using the Luck of the (Double) Irish"