Ryan Heath Peters

• Ryan Heath Peters (Work In Progress), Volatility and Venture Capital.
• Ryan Heath Peters and Luke Taylor (Forthcoming), Intangible Capital and the Investment-q Relation. Abstract

  Including intangible capital significantly changes how we evaluate theories of investment. We show that including intangible capital in measures of investment and Tobin’s q produces a stronger investment-q relation, especially in macroeconomic data and in firms that use more intangibles. These results lend support to the classic q theory of investment, and they call for the inclusion of intangible capital in proxies for firms’ investment opportunities. However, including intangible capital also makes the investment-cash flow relation almost an order of magnitude stronger, which supports newer investment theories. The classic q theory performs better in settings with more intangible capital.

• Ryan Heath Peters and Jonas DM Fisher (2010), Using Stock Returns to Identify Government Spending Shocks, The Economic Journal, Volume 120 (Issue 544), pp. 414-436. Abstract

  This article explores a new approach to identifying government spending shocks which avoids many of the shortcomings of existing approaches. The new approach is to identify government spending shocks with statistical innovations to the accumulated excess returns of large US military contractors. This strategy is used to estimate the dynamic responses of output, hours, consumption and real wages to a government spending shock. We find that positive government spending shocks are associated with increases in output, hours and consumption. Real wages initially decline after a government spending shock and then rise after a year. We estimate the government spending multiplier associated with increases in military spending to be about 1.5 over a horizon of 5 years.

Past Courses

• BEPP2500 - Managerial Economics

  This course will introduce you to "managerial economics" which is the application of microeconomic theory to managerial decision-making. Microeconomic theory is a remarkably useful body of ideas for understanding and analyzing the behavior of individuals and firms in a variety of economic settings. The goal of the course is for you to understand this body of theory well enough so that you can effectively analyze managerial (and other) problems in an economic framework. While this is a "tools" course, we will cover many real-world applications, particularly business applications, so that you can witness the usefulness of these tools and acquire the skills to use them yourself. We will depart from the usual microeconomic theory course by giving more emphasis to prescription: What should a manager do in order to achieve some objective? That course deliverable is to compare with description: Why do firms and consumers act the way they do? The latter will still be quite prominent in this course because only by understanding how other firms and customers behave can a manager determine what is beswt for him or her to do. Strategic interaction is explored both in product markets and auctions. Finally, the challenges created by asymmetric information - both in the market and within the firm - are investigated.

• BEPP9500 - Managerial Economics

  Public goods, externalities, uncertainty, and income redistribution as sources of market failures; private market and collective choice models as possible correcting mechanisms. Microeconomic theories of taxation and public sector expenditures. The administration and organization of the public sector.

• Wharton Finance Doctoral Fellowship, 2016
• Research Affiliate, Private Equity Research Consortium, 2016
• Research Fellowship, Mack Institute for Innovation Management, 2015
• Research Grant, Rodney L White Center for Financial Research, 2015
• Univ. of Penn Dean's Fellowship for Distinguished Merit, 2011

Knowledge @ Wharton

• Summer Reading: Wharton Faculty Picks, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/23/2024
• What Does Your Writing Style Say About You?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/23/2024
• How to Align Private Equity Motives with Nursing Home Outcomes, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/22/2024
• Baby Bust | Stewart Friedman, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/16/2024
• Why Are Private Equity Firms Buying Mental Health Clinics?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/15/2024
• Who Benefits in the Deal Between Reddit and OpenAI?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/15/2024
• How Behavioral Factors Shape Retirement Wealth, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/15/2024
• Stocks for the Long Run | Jeremy Siegel, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/09/2024
• This Media Bias Detector Analyzes News Reports in Real Time, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/09/2024
• Are Corporate Human Rights Practices Up to Par?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 07/08/2024