Business School

Associate Professor Kelvin Tan

Associate Professor in Finance
School of Business
+61 7 334 68051
Room 347, Colin Clark Building, St. Lucia Campus
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Researcher biography

Dr Tan is an Associate Professor in Finance at the UQ Business School.

Dr Tan has earned a reputation as a researcher with expertise in capital structure and corporate finance. His work has been published in leading academic and practitioner journals, such as Organization Science (Financial Times Top-50 (FT-50) Journal list, and UTD-24), Research Policy (FT-50), Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Nature Profolio's Scientific Reports. Six of his papers have also been named as the Best Papers at the following five conferences: (1) the Asian Finance Association Conference, (2) the European Real Estate Society Conference, (3) the Western Risk and Insurance Conference; (4) the 6th Behavioural Finance Conference; and (5) the 4th International Conferences on Advances in Business & Law. In addition, he was recently awarded the 2016 Early Career Researcher Excellence in Research Award by the UQ Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, and the 2017 and 2024 Award for Excellence in Research by the UQ Business School.

Dr Tan teaches FINM3403 International Financial Management and FINM7402 Corporate Finance at UQ Business School, and was recently awarded the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2013 and the Commendation for Postgraduate Teaching in 2017. Besides being an inspiring teaching instructor, Dr Tan is also a great research mentor for junior faculty and Ph.D. students. Dr Tan is particularly proud of all of his Ph.D. students, because all of them had at least one chapter of their theses published in an A* journal (ABDC ranked) and/or received at least a research award before their Ph.D. graduation. In addition, his current first-year PhD students have also been awarded a few numerous best paper awards at various prestigious international conferences. In recognition of his contribution to research supervision, he was awarded two research supervision awards in 2020: (1) the UQ Business School Award for Excellence in PhD Supervision; and (2) the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law (BEL) Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research (HDR) Supervision.

His research has been featured in UQ News and more than 100 media outlets worldwide, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, 7News, ABC Radio, Harvard Business Review, Yahoo News, International Business Times, and MedicalXpress. By June 2022, it ranked in the top 0.2% of over 21 million research outputs tracked by Altmetric. In recognition of his cross-disciplinary contributions, he received the UQ Business School Cross-Disciplinary Research Award in 2022. Beyond academia, his work has informed policy discussions and has been cited by the World Bank, Bank of Korea, Bank of Finland, Office for National Statistics, Australian Centre for Financial Studies and Africa CDC.

In terms of service and engagement within the UQ Business School (UQBS), Dr. Tan serves as the Honours Program Leader, also sitting on the UQBS Research Committee and UQBS Education Committee. Dr Tan was a Postgraduate Coordinator for the finance Ph.D. program between 2017 and 2020. Outside UQBS, Dr Tan serves as a Vice President (membership) and a board member for the Asian Finance Association, which is one of the top finance associations in Asia. Dr Tan is currently serving as a Deputy Editor at the Accounting and Finance Journal (ABDC "A" ranked Journal) and a Guest Editor for Pacific-Basin Finance Journal (A) and Accounting and Finance (A). Dr Tan also served as an Associate Editor at the Accounting Research Journal between 2018 and 2021.

His research interests focus on corporate finance, capital structure, and labor economics.

Publications

Journal Articles (26)
Generic Document (1)
Theses (2)

Journal Articles

Do, Truc (Peter), Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng and Wu, Yanhui (2025). Health and creativity: evidence from corporate innovation. Research Policy, 54 (9) 105310, 105310. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2025.105310
Chowdhury, Hasibul, Hue Le, Trinh and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2025). Organization capital and labor investment efficiency. Journal of Financial Stability, 77 101384, 101384-77. doi: 10.1016/j.jfs.2025.101384
Chowdhury, Hasibul, Lin, Beiqi, Mei, Shunji, Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng and Zhang, Lei (2024). Does exchange-traded fund ownership affect a firm’s expected crash risk?. European Accounting Review, ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print), 1-33. doi: 10.1080/09638180.2024.2368129
Im, Hyun Joong, Selvam, Srinivasan and Tan, Kelvin J.K. (2024). Effect of stock liquidity on the economic value of patents: Evidence from U.S. patent data. International Review of Financial Analysis, 94 103314, 1-19. doi: 10.1016/j.irfa.2024.103314
Chen, Guoli, Huang, Ronghong, Mei, Shunji and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2024). CEO Initial Contract Duration and Corporate Acquisitions. Organization Science, 36 (1), 1-23. doi: 10.1287/orsc.2022.16493
Lin, Beiqi, Mei, Shunji, Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng and Zhang, Lei (2024). Do exchange traded funds affect corporate cash holdings?. Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 51 (5-6), 1547-1592. doi: 10.1111/jbfa.12755
Quan, Xiaofeng, Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng and Li, Donghui (2024). An introduction to frontier on corporate finance and capital market development in China. Pacific Basin Finance Journal, 87 102504, 102504. doi: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2024.102504
Ye, Qiaozhi, Huang, Ronghong and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2023). Missing the boat: regulatory approval delay and investment project outcomes. The British Accounting Review, 55 (6) 101186, 1-27. doi: 10.1016/j.bar.2023.101186
Heeney, Luke, Yang, Shanelle, Chowdhury, Hasibul and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2023). Corporate cash holdings through economic policy uncertainty: An Australian study. Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, 79 102008, 1-10. doi: 10.1016/j.pacfin.2023.102008
Quan, Xiaofeng, Xiang, Cheng, Li, Donghui and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2023). To see is to believe: Corporate site visits and mutual fund herding. Financial Management, 52 (4), 711-740. doi: 10.1111/fima.12421
Chang, Dianna, Chang, Xin, He, Yu and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2022). The determinants of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality across countries. Scientific Reports, 12 (1) 5888, 5888. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-09783-9
Le, Trinh Hue, Oliver, Barry and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2022). Nowhere to hide: response of corporate restructuring activities to mandatory segment disclosure. Journal of Corporate Finance, 76 102251, 1-22. doi: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2022.102251
Li, Wenquan, Neupane-Joshi, Suman and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2022). Toxic emissions and corporate green innovation. SSRN Electronic Journal, 1-82. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4113290
Chowdhury, Hasibul, Hossain, Ashrafee, Tan, Kelvin and Zheng, Jiayi (2022). Do external labor market incentives improve labor investment efficiency?. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 34 100648, 100648. doi: 10.1016/j.jbef.2022.100648
Keng Tan, Kelvin Jui, Zhou, Qing, Pan, Zheyao and Faff, Robert (2021). Business shocks and corporate leverage. Journal of Banking and Finance, 131 106208, 1-21. doi: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2021.106208
Lin, Beiqi, Liu, Chelsea, Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng and Zhou, Qing (2020). CEO turnover and bankrupt firms’ emergence. Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 47 (9-10) jbfa.12482, 1238-1267. doi: 10.1111/jbfa.12482
Pan, Zheyao and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2019). The role of blockholders in the corporate debt maturity structure. Economics Letters, 185 108740, 108740. doi: 10.1016/j.econlet.2019.108740
Woods, Keegan, Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng and Faff, Robert (2019). Labor unions and corporate financial leverage: the bargaining device versus crowding-out hypotheses. Journal of Financial Intermediation, 37, 28-44. doi: 10.1016/j.jfi.2017.05.005
Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2017). Why do overconfident REIT CEOs issue more debt? Mechanisms and value implications. Abacus, 53 (3), 319-348. doi: 10.1111/abac.12111
Zhou, Qing, Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng, Faff, Robert and Zhu, Yushu (2016). Deviation from target capital structure, cost of equity and speed of adjustment. Journal of Corporate Finance, 39, 99-120. doi: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2016.06.002
Faff, Robert W., Gray, Stephen and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2016). A contemporary view of corporate finance theory, empirical evidence and practice. Australian Journal of Management, 41 (4), 662-686. doi: 10.1177/0312896216632032
Huang, Ronghong, Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng and Faff, Robert W. (2016). CEO overconfidence and corporate debt maturity. Journal of Corporate Finance, 36, 93-110. doi: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2015.10.009
Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng, Lee, Jia Min and Faff, Robert (2015). Short-selling pressure and last-resort debt financing: evidence from 144A high-yield risk-adjusted debt. Accounting and Finance, 56 (4), 1149-1185. doi: 10.1111/acfi.12125
Alcock, Jamie, Steiner, Eva and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2014). Joint leverage and maturity choices in real estate firms: the role of the REIT status. Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 48 (1), 57-78. doi: 10.1007/s11146-012-9379-7
Alcock, Jamie, Finn, Frank and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2012). The determinants of debt maturity in Australian firms. Accounting and Finance, 52 (2), 313-341. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-629X.2010.00397.x
Breunig, Robert, Menezes, Flavio M. and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2012). An empirical investigation of the mergers decision process in Australia. Economic Record, 88 (283), 459-475. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4932.2012.00831.x

Generic Document

Gray, Stephen and Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2011). The 2011 FTA Corporate Treasury Survey: Australia and New Zealand. Finance and Treasury Association.

Theses

Kelvin Jui Keng Tan (2011). Corporate Debt Maturity. PhD Thesis, UQ Business School, The University of Queensland.
Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng (2006). An empirical examination of corporate capital structure in Australia. Honours Thesis, School of Business, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/221491