Gary Tian

BSc (Shanghai Uni. of Science and Technology), Dip. Bus. Stud (Shanghai Foreign Trade Institute), MEcon (SUFE), MApplFin, PhD (Macquarie)

Telephone: (02) 4221 4301
Location: 40.301
Email: gary_tian@uow.edu.au

Areas of Expertise: Corporate governance and CEO compensation; Political connection and firm performance; Disproportional ownership, state controlled and family controlled firms; Financial market integration; Market microstructure and Chinese financial markets

Research Profile: UOW RIS Profile

Gary Tian is the Professor of Finance in the School of Accounting and Finance at the University of Wollongong. Before he joined the University, he worked at the Bank of China (1982-1984), Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (1987-1989), Macquarie University (1990-1992), Latrobe University (1994-1996), Flinders University (1996-1998) and the University of Western Sydney (1999-2006). In addition to various finance courses, he has also taught the MBA and Master of Applied Finance courses at Macquarie MGSM, Nanyang Business School, and South China University of Technology. He has also conducted several high-level financial executives training courses overseas. He has supervised students in research at all levels including Honours, Masters and PhD students. A number of his PhD students were funded by the China Scholarship Council and other PhD students received Australian Postgraduate Award (APA), University Postgraduate Award (UPA) and scholarships from industrial partners. He is also actively engaged in undergraduate honours supervision.

Gary has published extensively in the areas of corporate finance and governance, and market microstructure, particularly within the Chinese markets. His publication includes 38 refereed journal articles, as well as 10 books and book chapters. His publications have reached journals including the Journal of Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Australian Journal of Management, Journal of Asian-Pacific Economy, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Accounting and Finance, Multinational Finance Journal, and Australian Economic History Review.

Recently his co-authored paper “Disproportional ownership structure and pay-performance relationship: evidence from China’s listed firms”, with his then PhD student Xiaofei Pan and Jerry Cao from Singapore Management University, was published in Journal of Corporate Finance, (2011) 17 (3), 541–554, an ERA ranked A* journal. His other co-authored paper with his PhD student, Qigui Liu, their joint paper ‘Controlling shareholder, expropriations and firm’s leverage decision: Evidence from Chinese Non-tradable share reform’, was also published in Journal of corporate finance (2012) 18 (4), pp. 782-803. Gary has had another paper with Xiaofei Pan, Michael Lemmon, and Jerry Cao, won a Best Paper Award from the Financial Management Association in 2011. 

 In addition, he has won 20 internal and external research grants as a chief investigator since 1994, three of which were ARC grants from the Australian Research Council. He also won the Faculty Excellence Research Award in 2008.

Gary established a Chinese Commerce Research Centre (CCRC) in 2008 and acted as its director. Research collaboration between the Centre and other universities has been expanded markedly since the CCRC establishment. These universities include Singapore Management University, Fudan University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Sun Yat-Set University in China, University of Utah in the States and a number of local Australian universities.

Colleagues from other universities have been invited to visit the Centre for research collaboration and have delivered seminars. The previous presenters included Professor Jay Ritter from University of Florida, Chu Zhang from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Jerry Cao and Sheng Huang from Singapore Management University.

 Gary has served as a member of the editorial board for the Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy since 2009. Recently he was elected as a board member of the Asian Finance Association for three year tenure between 2012 and 2014.