Penn Professors on Writing in Finance

Dr. Jessica Wachter

About the Professor

Dr. Jessica Wachter is a Professor of Finance at the Wharton School. She received her A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and previously served at the Stern School of Business at New York University. Dr. Wachter specializes in financial economics and has worked on projects ranging from long-horizon equity to consumption-based interest term models. Dr. Wachter currently teaches honors sections of Finance 100, an undergraduate business fundamental course, and Finance 911, a course on the theoretical foundations of modern financial economics.

More information can be found at: Dr. Wachter's webpage

Writing Process

Dr. Wachter begins the research process by reading other related academic papers and synthesizing the various methods presented in these to form models in her own work.

"I start off by writing an abstract for the research paper. This provides me with the best means of checking whether the paper will do what it's supposed to do. I then lay out the proposed model and double-check my calculations for accuracy and consistency, since this is the core of the research paper. In the process of refining the model, I nearly create an entire appendix for the paper.

After the model has been taken to the data, I focus on the figures and tables that will go in the research paper. These are some of the most important elements of financial writing, and captions should be self-contained and pithy, but still provide relevant information for the reader. Once the figures and tables are laid out and accurately described, they are merged with the model and the research paper is put together.

The last step in the process is to write the introduction and the conclusion. Throughout the entire process, I continuously review the entire paper for its effectiveness."

Explanatory versus Justificatory Reasoning

Dr. Wachter says that the writing in her field is mostly explanatory but occasionally involves a bit of justification. She notes that any explicit effort to justify and persuade the reader should be held to a minimum. Writers in this discipline aim to make things as clear as possible for a reader regarded as having background but not necessarily expertise in the topic addressed.

Goal of Writing

Dr. Wachter says that her typical goal in a research paper is to offer an explanation of some aspect of various data that was previously mysterious or unexplored. She also writes review papers – such as Asset Allocation (2010) – that summarize, analyze, and evaluate other scholarship in the field.