Niso Abuaf

ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL ENGAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

Dr. Niso Abuaf is a Turkish-American-Sephardi economist, professor, and Investment Banker. He has been Clinical Professor of Financial Economics at Pace University for more than ten years, having also taught at NYU’s Stern, Chicago’s Booth, and at Bosphorus University. As a 35+ year veteran of Wall Street, Dr. Abuaf is currently Chief Economist and Financial Strategist at Samuel A. Ramirez and Co. Formerly, he was head of Global Financial Strategy at Credit Suisse, head of International Financial Strategy at Salomon Brothers/Citigroup, and Senior International Economist and Derivatives Specialist at JP Morgan Chase.

Along with colleagues at Salomon Brothers, he founded the Financial Strategy Group, the analytical think tank of Investment Banking. As such, Dr. Abuaf is considered a pioneer Investment Banking "quant." Financial Strategists develop balance sheet management and shareholder value maximization strategies for corporations, map out capital-markets issuance choices, solve M&A valuation challenges, work on new product development, engage sovereigns in privatizations, and formulate their Firm's macroeconomic outlook and investment approaches.

When advising clients and formulating his strategies, Dr. Abuaf specializes in synthesizing the global macro outlook with econometric analysis, modern finance theory, behavioral-finance "irrationalities," quantitative reasoning, and what-if scenario analysis.

As a scholar, Dr. Abuaf has published articles on: "Funding Strategies in a Rising Interest Rate and a Flattening Yield Curve Environment," "Global Equity Investing: An Efficient Frontier Approach," “Valuing International Equities,” “Estimating the Country-Risk Sensitivities of Emerging Market Equities,” “Corporate Liability Management in View of Macroeconomic Fundamentals,” “Ultra-Long Bonds,” “Shareholder Payout Policies,” “Valuing Illiquid Equity Securities,” and “Econometric Estimation of the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) Hypothesis.” Many consider his Journal of Finance PPP paper as a seminal contribution to empirical finance. This paper has been cited more than one thousand times. Moreover, Dr. Abuaf has been quoted in the Economist, Bloomberg News and the International Herald Tribune.

Dr. Abuaf’s current research interests span Global Macroeconomics and the Economics of Emerging Markets, Corporate Finance, Entrepreneurial Finance, Investment Strategies, and Applied Econometrics. His working papers include: ” “Efficient Frontier Strategies for Investing in International Fixed-Income Securities,” “Estimating Corporate Optimal Cash by Monte Carlo Simulation,” and "Cost of Capital for California Electric Utilities."

In the last decade, Dr. Abuaf has chaired or participated in nearly every Corporate Finance session of the New York Annual Meetings of the Financial Management Association. He has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Applied Finance, and is an adviser to the Center for Corporate Performance, headquartered at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Dr. Abuaf has a global perspective. He is multilingual and multicultural, having resided in Western Europe, the Middle East, and the US. He has worked on marquee cross-border M&A transactions, and global capital market activities, including emerging market and European privatizations and Yankee-bond offerings. He has run an R&D group for Citigroup in London, and has engaged in business activities throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He has presented papers at the Infiniti conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and at Bosporus, and Ozyegin Universities in Istanbul, Turkey. He is also a macroeconomic adviser to Alpamayo Capital, a macro hedge fund based in Frankfurt and London. His Silicon Valley activities include advising YourCapital, a FinTech startup.

At Pace University, he has chaired or been a member of the Curriculum Committee for nearly five years and has served on the Scholarly Activities Committee. He has given career advice to job seekers, and has supervised doctoral and honors-thesis students. He has given practitioner-centered talks to the Graduate Finance Club, and to numerous other student bodies.

Dr. Abuaf teaches International Economics and Finance, Macro and Micro Economics, Corporate Finance, Investments, Entrepreneurial Finance, Valuation, Derivatives, Fixed-Income, student-managed Investment Portfolio, and Financial Policy. He has taught Money and Banking at the University of Chicago, and derivatives, probability and statistics, econometrics, and quantitative methods in the business world.


Dr. Abuaf advises, and has advised blue-chip corporates including Apple, Amex, AT&T, Credit Suisse, Exelon, Facebook, GE, General Motors, Google, International Paper, Microsoft, Pfizer, PG&E, Prudential, Southwest Gas, Verizon; and sovereigns such as the republics of Argentina, Korea, Peru, and Turkey. Dr. Abuaf has played leading roles in marquee capital raisings (Apple, Exelon, Facebook, Microsoft), and restructurings and M&A transactions (ATT, Repsol-YPF), the development of an options market in Argentina, and the securitization of a an oil forward contract (the Salomon-Phibro Oil Trust).


In addition to his scholarly publications, Dr. Abuaf publishes and has published commercial articles, or made presentations, on the “Global Macroeconomic Outlook,” “Blue-Sky Factors in Equity Valuation,” “Economic, Behavioral, and Empirical Drivers of Capital Structure and Shareholder Payout Policies,” “Share Buybacks,” “Drivers of Dividend Policy,” “Fix-Floating Mix and Maturity Profile of Optimal Debt Portfolios,” “Statistical Drivers of Credit Ratings,” “Modeling the Yield Curve,” “Estimating the Equity Cost of Capital by using the Fama-French-Carhart Model,” “Estimating the Pricing Behavior of Large Bond Offerings,” “Responses of Bank Stocks to Yield-Curve Shocks,” “Foreign Currency Options and Other Derivatives,” “The Characteristics and Management of Foreign Exchange Risk,” “Estimating the International Cost of Capital,” “Estimating the Industry Cost of Equity and Estimating the Equity Market Risk Premium,” “Estimating the Market’s Response to Issuing Mandatory Convertible Securities in Conjunction with Common Stock,” “The Economics of Issuing Convertible Debt,” “Estimating the Value of Privately Held Electric and Gas Utilities,"
and "Estimating the Cost of Capital of California Electric Utilities in the presence of Wildfire Risk."

Dr. Abuaf has lectured to large audiences such as the National Association of Securities Professionals, the diversity-based suppliers of the Prudential Insurance Company, and the Young Presidents Organization.

Dr. Abuaf received a BS and MS in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, and an MBA and a PhD in Financial Economics from the University of Chicago. His Ph.D. dissertation explores the role of real and monetary shocks on the real exchange rate. His 1974 MS dissertation was on “The Detection of Arteriosclerosis by Ultrasound.”

In Istanbul he attended Isik Lisesi (Ataturk's School), the English High School for Boys (junior high), Robert Academy, and Robert College.

Dr. Abuaf is an avid tennis player and skier. His interests include domestic and global travel, the ballet, the opera and the theater, jazz and classical music. He is a history buff with an emphasis on the history of science and innovation, economic history, and the history of economic thought. He is fluent in French, Judeo-Spanish, Spanish, and Turkish, and has a working knowledge of German and Italian.

Dr. Abuaf is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a founding board member of the World Affairs Council of New Jersey, Economic Club of New York, Financial Management Association, Forecasters Club of New York, National Association of Business Economists, New York Association of National Business Economists, the American Jewish Committee, the American Turkish Society, and the Turkish-American Business Forum. He is a regular attendee of the meetings of the Shadow Open Market Committee, a member of the Manhattan Institute and the Yale Club.

Dr. Abuaf holds US, Turkish and Spanish citizenships, and has a son, a daughter, and a granddaughter. His deceased wife, Perlette Abuisak Abuaf, was a professor of chemistry and a bio-medical researcher.

PhD, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
International Finance

MBA, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Finance

MSc (High Honors), Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Electrical and Biomedical Engineering

BSc ( High Honors), Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Electrical Engineering

SELECTED CONTRIBUTIONS & PUBLICATIONS

Abuaf, N., Jorion, P. (1990). Purchasing Power Parity in the Long Run. Journal of Finance. XLV(1), 157-175. Read More >>

Abuaf, N. (2010). Valuing Illiquid Equity Securities in Light of the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009. Journal of Applied Finance. 20(1), 110-126. Read More >>

Abuaf, N. (2011). Valuing Emerging Market Equities. Journal of Applied Finance. 21(2), 123-141. Read More >>

Abuaf, N. (2012). Excess Cash and Shareholder Payout Strategies. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. 24(3), 39-54.

Abuaf, N. (2012). Issuing 50 to 100-Year Bonds. Journal of Applied Finance. 22(1), 24-34. Read More >>

Abuaf, N. (2013). The Macroeconomic Outlook and Liability Management Strategies. Journal of Applied Finance. 23(2), 52-60. Read More >>

Abuaf, N. (2015). Valuing Emerging Market Equities - A Pragmatic Approach Based on the Empirical Evidence. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. 27(1), 71-88.

Abuaf, N., Ayala, T., Sinclair, D. (2018). Global equity investing: An efficient frontier approach. International Finance. 20181-16.

Abuaf, N. (2018). Funding Strategies in a Rising Interest Rate and a Flattening Yield Curve Environment. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. 30(3), 11.