Essec Business School

A new academic year has begun, and with it, ESSEC is happy to welcome six new faculty members in the departments of Finance, Economics, Information Systems, Data Analytics and Operations, and Law, Political Science & Society!

Pat Akey, Associate Professor, Department of Finance  

Pat Akey is Associate Professor at ESSEC Business School where he holds Chair of Excellence for Financial Innovation. He is a member of the European Corporate Governance Institute. He completed his PhD in Finance in 2014 from the London Business School. His research focuses on the political economy of finance and the incentives of firms to engage in pro-social behavior.  He has presented his research at numerous major academic and practitioner conferences and published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies.  He was awarded the 2016 Rising Scholar Award for the best paper by a young researcher published in the Review of Financial Studies and one of the 2021 Brattle Prize Distinguished Paper Awards for one of the best papers in Corporate Finance published in the Journal of Finance.   Major media outlets such as The Economist, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio have cited his work.  He was previously on the faculties of the University of Toronto and INSEAD.

Pat Akey is Associate Professor at ESSEC Business School where he holds Chair of Excellence for Financial Innovation. He is a member of the European Corporate Governance Institute. He completed his PhD in Finance in 2014 from the London Business School. His research focuses on the political economy of finance and the incentives of firms to engage in pro-social behavior.  He has presented his research at numerous major academic and practitioner conferences and published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies.  He was awarded the 2016 Rising Scholar Award for the best paper by a young researcher published in the Review of Financial Studies and one of the 2021 Brattle Prize Distinguished Paper Awards for one of the best papers in Corporate Finance published in the Journal of Finance.   Major media outlets such as The Economist, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio have cited his work.  He was previously on the faculties of the University of Toronto and INSEAD.

Hippolyte d’Albis, Professor, Department of Economics

Hippolyte d’Albis is Professor at ESSEC Business School and Chief Economist at the French Inspectorate General of Finance. He is also Vice-President of the Cercle des économistes, Director of the French team of the National Transfer Accounts project, columnist for Les Échos, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Demographic Economics, the Journal of the Economics of Ageing, and Public Finance Review. He holds a PhD in Economics from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and is an agrégé des universités (tenured professor). He has been Associate Professor at Toulouse 1 University, Professor at Montpellier 3 University, Professor at Paris 1 University, and Research Director at the CNRS. He has also served as Director of the Panthéon-Sorbonne Doctoral School of Economics, Deputy Scientific Director at the CNRS Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (INSHS), advisor at the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and Director of the Graduate School of Demography (École des Hautes Études en Démographie).

His academic research primarily examines the economic consequences of demographic change. His work has been published in journals in economics, demography, mathematics, as well as in leading general science journals such as Science, Science Advances, Scientific Reports, and PLOS One. He has been elected to the Institut Universitaire de France and is the recipient of the Philippe Michel Prize for young researchers in economic dynamics, the Best Young Economist Award (awarded by Le Monde and the Cercle des économistes), a European Research Council grant, and the Grand Prize for Social Protection (awarded by the Caisse des Dépôts and En3s) for his book Les seniors et l’emploi.

Jérôme Dugast, Associate Professor, Department of Finance

Jérôme Dugast is Associate Professor of Finance at ESSEC Business School. He is a member of the Finance Theory Group and a Louis Bachelier Fellow. Jérôme graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in 2008. He also holds the ENSAE Diploma and a Master in Economics from the Paris School in Economics. Jérôme obtained his PhD in Finance from HEC Paris in 2013. Before joining ESSEC, he worked at Banque de France, the University of Luxembourg, and Université Paris Dauphine - PSL. His research focuses on the role of information in financial markets, and the structure of financial markets. His work has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Economic Studies.

François Le Grand, Professor, Department of Economics

François Le Grand is Professor of Economics at ESSEC Business School. He previously held faculty positions at Rennes School of Business and emlyon business school and served as an associate researcher at ETH Zurich. His research bridges macroeconomic policy and household finance, with a sustained focus on fiscal–monetary interactions and public debt management. Recent work appears in the Review of Economic Studies and the Journal of Political Economy. He holds a PhD in economics from EHESS/Paris School of Economics and earlier degrees from École Polytechnique and ENSAE. He also has experience in investment banking. An experienced teacher, he has taught macroeconomics, finance, and microeconomics at the bachelor’s and master’s levels. He is based at ESSEC’s Cergy campus in France. 

Paul Oudin, Assistant Professor, Department of Law, Political Science & Society

Paul Oudin is Assistant Professor of Law at ESSEC. His research spans corporate law, financial regulation, and the governance of emerging technologies, with a strong interdisciplinary focus. His current projects explore the harmonisation of corporate law in Europe, the governance of AI firms, comparative constitutional law, and the regulation of insider trading and securities fraud. Before joining ESSEC, Paul was a Departmental Lecturer in Law & Finance at the University of Oxford, where he also completed his DPhil (PhD) in Law. He practised law for four years as a securities lawyer in Paris alongside his DPhil and has held visiting positions at Columbia University, Sapienza Università, and the Max-Planck-Institut in Hamburg.

Xingang Wen, Assistant Professor, Department of Information Systems, Data Analytics and Operations

Dr. Xingang Wen is Assistant Professor in Operations Management in the Department of Information Systems, Data Analytics and Operations at ESSEC Business School. He holds two Phd degrees, one in Economics from Tilburg University in the Netherlands and the other in Management Science from Xi'an Jiaotong University in China.  Before joining ESSEC, he was a postdoc researcher at Bielefeld University in Germany. Dr. Wen's research focuses on firms’ optimal decisions under uncertainty, particularly for the operations like innovation investment, production planning, and transportation. He applies an interdisciplinary approach to address the challenges firms face under uncertainties related to market demand, technological advancements, and regulatory changes. His current research interests include R&D innovation and patent race, financing constraints, smart products and liabilities, energy market, strategic investment, etc.