Jung Chul Park, Associate Professor in Finance, has a passion for researching political influences in the financial world.

Do political ties affect CEOs and their companies? How do investors understand these relations? Are stock prices influenced by these relations? How, and why?

Dr. Jung Chul Park, McLain Family Professor of Finance in the Raymond J. Harbert College of Business, has long been fascinated by the ways in which political pull impacts corporations and authored published papers on politics and finance since 2012, including the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Empirical Finance.

“My co-authors and I pioneered a new area of research – political finance,” said Park, the college’s McLain Family Professor. “Even though many people believe there is a strong link between politics and the financial markets, no one had connected the link before. Now, this area of study has been one of the hottest topics in finance.”

For his research, Park will be the third recipient of the 2013 SHB-Korea America Finance Association Young Scholar Award. The award – supported by Shinhan Bank, one of Korea’s largest banks -- is presented to a Korean professor who has made the most significant contribution of the year among young scholars who have earned a PhD within seven years prior the award. He will receive the award at the Financial Management Association meeting in Chicago, Oct. 16-19.

Previous winners of the award are Purdue University Assistant Professor in Finance Byoung-Hyoun Hwang and Kuan-Hui Lee, Associate Professor in Finance at Seoul National University.

“I was informed that I had been nominated and that was a great honor,” Park said. “But over the weekend (Sept. 14-15), I received a call and was informed that I had won. I did not expect myself to be awarded this. I’m so happy to be included in this prestigious group. It is a great honor for me to receive this prestigious award. This is surely one of the happiest moments in my life, and there is no way to fully describe what this award means to me, family and school.”

Department of Finance Chair Lee Colquitt said Park’s honor was no surprise.

“He was recently promoted to Associate Professor at Auburn with one of the strongest research records in our department at this stage of his career,” he said. “As we lay the foundation for our new PhD program in Finance, I expect Dr. Park to make a significant contribution to our program’s success.”

Park also earned the Harbert College of Business’ 2012-13 Outstanding Research Award last spring.

In the past six years, 10 of Park’s 19 published papers have been included in “elite” journals, including four in the past year alone.

“Doing research, I feel alive,” he said with a large smile. “I’m excited. I’m curious. I always want to know something.”