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Gishan Dissanaike

Director of the MPhil in Finance Programme
Reader in Finance
Director of Studies in Management Studies at Trinity College

BA (Univ. of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka), MPhil, PhD (Univ. of Cambridge)

Professional Experience

Dr Dissanaike is a financial economist and a senior don at the University. He is currently a University Reader and the Director of the Cambridge MPhil Programme in Finance, a cross-faculty programme involving three faculties - the Faculty of Economics, Faculty of Mathematics and Cambridge Judge Business School. Prior to being promoted to the post of Reader, Gishan was a University Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer at the University. He has also held an ESRC Research Fellowship and an Academic Fellowship of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales.

Gishan has been consulted by a number of international corporations, investment banks, and regulatory agencies. He previously worked for Banque Indosuez (now Crédit Agrigole Indosuez), and recently held a visiting faculty appointment at Cornell University.

Gishan was the co-chair of the 2009 European Financial Management Association Symposium on Corporate Governance and Control. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals and is the Finance Editor of the Journal of Asia Business Studies.

Awards and Scholarships

• Finalist of the European Corporate Governance Institute Clinical Papers Competition, co-sponsored by the Journal of Financial Economics (JFE) and Swedish Center for Business and Policy Studies (SNS), 2004
• Pilkington Prize, University of Cambridge, 2002
• Iddo Sarnat Prize, awarded by the Journal of Banking and Finance and the European Finance Association, 1995
• Research Studentship for Economics, Trinity College, Cambridge, 1989-1992
• Overseas Research Studentship (ORS), 1989-1992
• P.D. Khan Gold Medal for the best performance in Economics, University of Peradeniya, 1986
• Arts Faculty Scholarship for the best performance in the Arts Faculty, University of Peradeniya, 1986
• Ryde Gold Medal, Trinity College, Kandy, 1982

Research Interests

The nature, performance and efficiency of stock markets; do stockmarket investors overreact?; the profitability of contrarian and momentum strategies; corporate finance and governance; the dynamics of capital structure; emerging markets finance.

Gishan Dissanaike is a member of the Finance & Accounting research group and the Finance & Accounting teaching group.

Selected Publications

Dissanaike, G. (1996) "Are stock price reversals really asymmetric? A note." Journal of Banking and Finance, 20(1): 189-201

Dissanaike, G. (1997) "Do stock market investors overreact?" Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 24(1): 27-49

Dissanaike, G. (2002) "Does the size effect explain the UK winner-loser effect?" Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 29(1-2): 139-154

Dissanaike, G. and Le Fur, A. (2003) "On the use of the Log CAR measure in event studies." Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 30(7/8): 1165-1170

Dissanaike, G. and Lim, K.H. (2009) "The sophisticated and the simple: the profitability of contrarian strategies." European Financial Management (forthcoming) (DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-036X.2008.00466.x)
Also available via the Social Science Research Network website »

Dissanaike, G. and Markar, I. (2009) "Corporate financing in East Asia before the 1997 crash." Journal of International Business Studies, 40(6): 990-1004 (DOI: doi:10.1057/jibs.2009.13) (forthcoming)
Also available via the Social Science Research Network website (longer version) »

More publications »