NASD Economic Advisory Board Announces Addition of Three New Members - NASD Also Appoints New Visiting Academic Fellow

The NASD® recently announced the addition of three renowned experts in financial markets as members of the Economic Advisory Board (EAB) -- Professor William G. Christie, Professor Erik R. Sirri, and Professor Chester S. Spatt. The primary goal of the EAB is to discuss and communicate specific policy recommendations to the NASD, NASDR®, Nasdaq®, and Amex®. The EAB meets formally twice a year in October and March, and provides a forum for research presentations, discussion of issues relevant to the NASD and the EAB, the exchange of research ideas, and access to market data. This year's new members bring with them a vast knowledge of how financial markets function, as reflected in the following biographies. William G. Christie is Associate Professor of Finance at Vanderbilt University. He received his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago in 1989 where he examined corporate dividend policy. Professor Christie is an expert in market microstructure research and the role of corporate finance in determining firm value. His seminal work on Nasdaq trading costs with Paul Schultz at the University of Notre Dame helped lead to major market reforms on Nasdaq that lowered the trading costs faced by investors. His current research focuses on the relation between trading costs and tick sizes, the behavior of the Nasdaq market during trading halts, the relation between dividend announcements and the adoption of EVA compensation plans, and the long run performance of seasoned equity following rights offerings. Professor Christie is Associate Editor for the Review of Financial Studies, Financial Management, and the Journal of Financial Intermediation. In September 1999, he was named Associate Professor of Finance and Associate Dean of the Owen School of Business. Prior to pursing his Ph.D., Professor Christie worked as a financial analyst at the Canadian operations of Hewlett-Packard and the Ford Motor Company. Erik R. Sirri is Associate Professor of Finance at Babson College and holder of the Walter H. Carpenter Chair. From 1996 to 1999, Professor Sirri was the Chief Economist of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, he served as the senior advisor to the Commission and its chairman on major economic policy issues. Professor Sirri was also an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Harvard Business School from 1989 to 1995. He received his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1990 where he modeled the relationship between spreads, price changes, and trade size. An expert in financial markets and market microstructure research, Professor Siri's research interests include the interaction of securities law and finance, the design and performance of securities exchanges, and the mutual funds industry. Chester S. Spatt is the Mellon Bank Professor of Finance at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979. Professor Spatt is an expert in financial markets and market microstructure research. His research interests include a wide range of topics: pricing and hedging of fixed income securities with an emphasis on mortgage contracting and valuation; equilibrium models of forward curves for commodities; taxation and asset pricing with an emphasis on how the taxation of capital gains and losses impacts investor realization behavior and the pricing of securities; market microstructure including the effect of information and strategic behavior on market processes, the interaction between the order flow and order book in security markets, and the effect of the pre-opening process on price formation. He is the current Director of the Center for Financial Markets at Carnegie Mellon University and has authored numerous academic articles. Professor Spatt is has served as executive editor of the Review of Financial Studies and as president of the Society of Financial Studies and the Western Finance Association. The new members join a distinguished group of EAB financial economists and professors that include: Georgetown's Jim Angel, Penn State's Ian Domowitz, USC's Larry Harris, NYU's Joel Hasbrouck, Wisconsin's Mark Ready, and Ohio State's Ingrid Werner. Each Board member serves a term of three years, and all members have agreed to volunteer their services and only receive reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses The NASD is also pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Jeffrey H. Harris as Visiting Academic Fellow. Professor Harris currently holds a visiting economist position at the SEC and will join the NASD this summer. Since 1998, he has been an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to Notre Dame, he taught at The Ohio State University, where he obtained his Ph.D. His areas of expertise include market microstructure and capital markets and his publications include papers that examine The Small Order Execution SystemSM (SOESSM) trading, trading costs, and quoting behavior on Nasdaq. Professor Harris will replace the current Visiting Academic Fellow, Georgetown University Professor James Angel. The NASD is the largest securities-industry, self-regulatory organization in the United States. It is the parent organization of The Nasdaq Stock Market, The American Stock Exchange®, and NASD Regulation®. For more information about the NASD and its subsidiaries, please visit the following Web sites: www.nasd.com; www.nasdaq.com; www.amex.com; www.nasdr.com; or the Nasdaq NewsroomSM at www.nasdaqnews.com.