About
Yang Bai is an Assistant Professor of Finance at California State University, Fullerton. In Spring 2025, he is teaching Introduction to Investments, a course that covers foundational topics such as asset classes, exchange trading, fundamental valuation, and portfolio theory.
Yang is active in research. His recent work explores homeownership's life cycle benefits. His current research interests include:
- Investments,
- Machine Learning in Finance,
- Mergers and Acquisitions, and
- Regulatory Enforcement.
Yang has received several accolades for his research contributions. His paper co-authored with Inder Khurana and Ruixiang Wang, which examines the SEC's interest in founder-CEO firms, was selected as a semifinalist for the Best Paper Award at the FMA 2023 Annual Meeting.
Another paper, co-authored with Fred Bereskin, Xiaohu Guo, and Miriam Schwartz-Ziv, investigating the SEC's regulatory focus on board gender diversity, won the Best Paper Award at the Boca Corporate Finance and Governance Conference 2022.
Yang was also awarded the third prize in the 19th Annual Dr. Richard A. Crowell Memorial Prize competition, sponsored by PanAgora Asset Management. His winning paper applied machine learning classification models to explore return predictability and its implications.†
Yang is a Certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM), accredited by the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). He earned his Ph.D. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from the University of Missouri. He also holds a master's degree in Statistics and a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the University of Georgia.
Prior to pursuing his Ph.D., Yang worked as part of the data science team at the Center of Excellence of Assurant, Inc. in Atlanta. In his free time, Yang enjoys gym workouts, outdoor activities, and exploring technology. He currently resides in Fullerton, California.
To contact Yang, please email him at yabai@fullerton.edu.
† For those who are interested, the Crowell Prize competition is widely known for recognizing leading academic research in asset pricing that connects theory and practice. Interested vistors can check out the history of first prize winners.