BOSTON, Feb. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Brattle Group and The Journal of Finance are thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2025 Brattle Group Prizes in Corporate Finance, an annual award recognizing outstanding research published in the journal. The winners are selected by the Associate Editors of The Journal of Finance and awarded through a grant from The Brattle Group, underscoring the firm’s commitment to advancing rigorous analysis and debate on compelling issues facing the corporate finance community.
This year’s recipients were announced at the American Finance Association’s Annual Meeting in January, where Brattle Principal Shastri Sandy presented the awards. Eligible papers for the Prizes are those published in the first five issues of The Journal of Finance for the given year, as well as the December issue from the prior year. The top-voted paper receives a $25,000 First Prize, and two additional papers receive $10,000 Distinguished Paper awards.
The winners of the 2025 Brattle Group Prizes in Corporate Finance are:
- First Prize Paper: “Mortgage Lock-in, Mobility, and Labor Reallocation,” by Julia Fonseca and Lu Liu (December 2024 issue)
This paper examines how rising mortgage rates affect household mobility and labor reallocation, highlighting the unintended consequences of monetary tightening in the presence of long-term fixed-rate mortgages.
- Distinguished Paper: “Scope, Scale, and Concentration: The 21st-Century Firm,” by Gerard Hoberg and Gordon M. Phillips (February 2025 issue)
Drawing on evidence from firm 10-Ks, the authors of this paper document a significant expansion in the scope of US firms’ operations over the past three decades, realized primarily through acquisitions and investment in research and development (R&D).
- Distinguished Paper: “Regulatory Fragmentation,” by Joseph Kalmenovitz, Michelle Lowry, and Ekaterina Volkova (April 2025 issue)
This paper provides the first systematic evidence on the extent and costs of regulatory fragmentation – a phenomenon in which multiple federal agencies oversee a single policy area – with the authors finding that fragmentation increases firms’ costs while lowering productivity, profitability, and growth.
“The Brattle Group Prizes celebrate the essential role that robust academic research plays in shaping our understanding of complex corporate finance issues, including those faced by practitioners in litigation and regulatory settings,” said Dr. Sandy, Co-Leader of the firm’s White Collar Investigations & Litigation practice. “Brattle congratulates the winners and is proud to support their work, which has findings that resonate well beyond academia.”
“This year’s winning and distinguished papers of the Brattle Prizes are a testimony to the relevance of finance research across a large range of socially and economically important topics, including labor market adaptability, firm scope, and regulatory fragmentation in the US,” said Dr. Antoinette Schoar, the Executive Editor of The Journal of Finance. “It is wonderful that the Brattle Group Prizes help us acknowledge this interesting work.”
For more information about the Brattle Group Prizes, including past winners, please visit brattle.com/prize.
ABOUT BRATTLE
The Brattle Group answers complex economic, finance, and regulatory questions for corporations, law firms, and governments around the world. We are distinguished by the clarity of our insights and the credibility of our experts, which include leading international academics and industry specialists. Brattle has 500 talented professionals across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. For more information, please visit brattle.com.
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SOURCE The Brattle Group
