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Biography

Jonathan M. Karpoff is the Washington Mutual Endowed Chair in Innovation and Professor of Finance at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.  Jon’s research explores how economic insights provide insight to many puzzles and problems, from Alaska’s salmon fisheries to corporate crime and punishment to polar exploration. A recent study finds that Jon’s research impact ranks in the top 1% of all scientists worldwide.  Jon also loves teaching and learning from students, and at the Foster School’s Executive MBA and PhD programs, he has received 16 teaching and mentorship awards since 2010.


Jon’s serves on the boards of several leading research journals and the Financial Economists Roundtable, and this year initiated a new mentoring project for the American Finance Association’s Committee on Racial Diversity.  He also is on Board for the Plain Valley Ski Trails and Plain Valley Nordic Team, which supports barrier-free access to cross-country skiing for young people and the most kick-ass junior Nordic ski team in the Pacific Northwest!  This coming winter you can catch him as an assistant coach for the team, chasing 10-year old kids around on skis and falling down a lot.  


Fun facts: Jon’s passion for Adventure Skate Skiing was the topic of a Wall Street Journal article, and in July 2022, Jon became the 86th person to summit all of the Bulger Top 100 peaks in Washington state.


For information on Jon’s research or teaching materials, or a link to his personal site, visit his UW pageSSRN page, or Google Scholar page.

Current Projects

• “The Tragedy of ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ – Hardin vs. the Property Rights Theorists,” January 2020, https://ssrn.com/abstract=3531981.

• “The Prevalence and Costs of Financial Misrepresentation,” with Abdullah Alawadhi, Jennifer Lynch Koski, and Gerald S. Martin, January 2020, https://ssrn.com/abstract=3532053.

• “Enforcement Waves and Spillovers,” with Hae Mi Choi, Xiaoxia Lou, and Gerald S. Martin, September 2019, https://ssrn.com/abstract=3526555.

• “The Consequences to Directors of Deploying Poison Pills,” with William C. Johnson and Michael D. Wittry, August 2019), https://ssrn.com/abstract=3460201.

• “Which Antitakeover Provisions Matter?” with Robert J. Schonlau and Eric W. Wehrly, April 2019, https://ssrn.com/abstract=3142195.

• “Foreign Bribery: Incentives and Enforcement,” with D. Scott Lee and Gerald S. Martin, April 2017, https://ssrn.com/abstract=1573222.

• “The Lifecycle Effects of Firm Takeover Defenses,” with William C. Johnson and Sangho Yi, December 2018, https://ssrn.com/abstract=2808208.

Research Interests

Corporate governance, corporate finance, law and economics, business misconduct, trust

Working Papers

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