His research focuses on theoretical and empirical issues in the pricing of fixed income securities and sources of differences in risk premia across firms' equity. Dittmar's recent work has focused on the impact of default risk on the relative pricing of nominal and inflation-protected Treasury securities. His work has been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies among other outlets. He served as an associate editor for the Review of Financial Studies.

Dittmar has taught courses across all degree programs and platforms, including undergraduate, MBA, online MBA and Ph.D. courses. His teaching has focused on investment strategies, professional asset management, and the pricing of debt and other fixed income securities. From 2012-2020 he advised the University of Michigan Ross School of Business student-run equity fund, the Maize and Blue Fund. Dittmar was also the inaugural faculty co-director of the Ross Fintech Initiative. In concert with this initiative, he designed or co-designed several fintech courses, including a course on using machine learning to implement investment strategies and a Coursera specialization on fintech.

Dittmar joins Rice after serving as a finance faculty for 19 years at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Additionally, Robert was a faculty member at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.S. in finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Finance | Finance

Predicting Risk

A new lens may lead to insights on default risk.