Manuel Tarrazo

Manuel Tarrazo has taught a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses throughout his career at USF, including: financial management, investment analysis, entrepreneurship, personal finance, investing in Bay Area firms, and entrepreneurial finance.

His research interests center on financial decision-making, especially financial management and the selection of investments. He has made contributions (including 30 journal publications and 40 academic presentations) to pedagogy, the enhancement of tools and procedures (portfolio optimization; corporate, institutional, and individual planning; estimation and evaluation), and alternative methodologies (fuzzy sets, artificial intelligence, interdisciplinary approaches, and qualitative methods). His recent research on focused portfolios (4-12 investments) has yielded insights in the areas of individual/household, specialized institutional, and entrepreneurial investing.

In addition to his work in finance, he is teaching and doing research on the startup economy and entrepreneurial investing, participating in domestic and internationals entrepreneurial development efforts, and collaborating with Silicon Valley venture capitalists. He is also an invited professor at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas and has presented at the University of Paris IV Paris-Sorbonne/CELSA.

• Corporate finance, financial management, investment analysis, entrepreneurial finance, and investing

• PhD, Economics and Finance, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 1993
• MA, Economics, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 1985
• Licenciado, Economics (with concentration in Business and Public Finance), Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, 1981

• Adjunct Faculty, Santa Clara University
• Financial Manager, Terrain SDP, S.A., Madrid, Spain

• Outstanding Research Award, USF School of Management (2014, 2009, 1998)

• Chair, Undergraduate Program Committee, USF (2009 - 2011)

• Best Interdisciplinary Paper Award: “Identifying Securities to Buy: The Heuristic ri/stdi.” Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute (2006).

• Outstanding Teaching Award, USF School of Management (2005)

• Best Paper Award in Finance: “Teaching What We Know about Asset Allocation.” Meeting of the Western Decision Sciences Institute (2003).

• Editorial Board Member, Technological Horizons in Education (1995 - 2000)

• Best Paper Award in Finance: “Is Finance a Paper Tiger?” Meeting of the Academy of Economics and Finance (1997).

• "What do Venture Capitalists Think of Venture Capital Research?" co-authored with Mark Cannice and J. P. Allen. Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Vol. 18. Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Vol. 18, Issue 1, 2016.

• "Polynomial Least Squares and Sovereign Debt Risk Indicators," International Research Journal of Applied Finance, Vol. 6, Issue 8, pp. 558-584, July 2015.

• "Portfolio Optimization without Programming – Pedagogical and Practical Implications," Advances in Financial Education, Vol. 12, pp. 90-122, 2014.

• "Portfolio Optimization with Correlation Matrices: How, Why, and Why not," Journal of Finance and Investment Analysis, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 17-34, 2013.

• "Direct Investing in Bonds during Retirement," co-authored with Steve Huxley, Journal of Personal Finance, Vol. 12, Issue 1, 2013.

• "Minimum-Variance versus Tangent Portfolios - a Comment," Journal of Asset Management, 13, pp. 186-195, 2012 (with Ricardo Ubeda).

• "Algebraic Analysis of Optimal Portfolios," Advances in Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management, Vol. 4, pp. 113-152, 2010.

• "On Portfolios and Regressions," The Journal of Financial Education, Vol. 35, 2009.

• "Identifying Securities to Buy: the heuristic ri/stdi," Research in Finance, Vol. 25, 2009.

• "Positive Optimal Weights on the EfficientFrontier: Conditions, Causes, and Implications" The International Journal of Finance, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2008.