Professor Mark Freeman
Professor of Finance Associate Dean of Faculty

Profile

Biography

Mark Freeman is a Professor of Finance and the Associate Dean (Partnerships, Engagement, and International) for the Faculty of Social Sciences. 

Mark is interested in intergenerational financial economics, particularly the cost-benefit analyses of projects, policies and regulations that span many decades. This work has a range of applications, including for the economic and financial appraisal of climate change mitigation initiatives.  He has provided advice to a wide range of public bodies in the UK and internationally concerning the choice of the social discount rate and its uses, including currently serving as Deputy Chair of the Financial Conduct Authority's independent statutory panel on Cost Benefit Analysis.

Mark has held a variety of academic leadership roles during his career across research, teaching, and engagement.  Previously he was Dean of the University of York Management School, which became incorporated into the School for Business and Society in 2022.  Prior to working at York, he held professorial positions at the Universities of Loughborough and Bradford, non-professorial full-time academic appointments at the Universities of Exeter and Warwick, as well as visiting positions in the United States and Australia.  At Loughborough, he was the Academic Leader for the University Research Challenge of “Secure and Resilient Societies”, and he also acted as its Director of Executive Education.  At Bradford, he was the Director of the Accounting, Finance & Economics Division, and was responsible for the design, launch and running of its M.Sc. in Finance.

Over his career, Mark has taught across a wide range of finance topics, mainly at the postgraduate and executive levels, including corporate finance, derivatives, investment management, asset pricing, and international finance.  He has won awards for both his teaching and research.

Before becoming an academic, Mark worked as an equity research analyst specialising in the brewing and distilling industries for stockbrokers Savory Milln and James Capel in London.  He has also worked on a major project appraisal for the bottling division of United Distillers in Scotland.  He holds a first class degree in Mathematics from Nottingham University and a PhD in Finance from Warwick Business School.

Research

Overview

Mark’s research interests lie in addressing problems in financial economics that span many decades. Much of his recent research focuses on the appropriate choice of discount rates for use in intergenerational cost-benefit analysis.  His work is particularly associated with the literature on `declining discount rates’, the elicitation and reconciliation of expert opinions on intergenerational social discount rates, and the application of these findings for estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon.  His research in these areas has been published in leading journals in interdisciplinary sciences (Science, Nature Climate Change, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, etc) and economics (American Economic Review, The Economic Journal, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, etc) as well as journals in accounting and finance. 

Mark’s research has been of interest to international policy makers, with him providing an impact case study for Loughborough University’s REF2021 submission.  He has co-authored reports commissioned in the UK by HM Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Office for National Statistics, and the Department for Transport.  Internationally, he has given input to the White House through the Office of Management & Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers concerning Federal cost-benefit analysis methods.  He has also given advice to the US Environmental Protection Agency on the application of these methods to estimating the social costs of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to the Ministry of Finance (Netherlands), the International Seabed Authority, and the OECD.  His research has also been widely cited by a range of international bodies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the EU Parliament.

Previously, Mark’s research focused on the long-run investment outlook for well-diversified portfolios.  His work in this area was funded by the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management and through the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.  He presented this work at the World Bank and provided related advice for the Financial Conduct Authority. 

Publications

Selected publications

Drupp, M.A., et al. (2024), “Accounting for the increasing benefits from scarce ecosystems”, Science, 383, 6687,1062-1064.

Nesje, F., M. Drupp, M.C. Freeman, and B. Groom (2023), “Philosophers and economists agree on climate policy paths but for different reasons”, Nature Climate Change, 13, 515-522.

Hänsel M.C. M.A. Drupp, D.J.A. Johansson, F. Nesje, C. Azar, M.C. Freeman, B. Groom and T. Sterner (2020), ”Climate economics support for the UN climate targets”.  Nature Climate Change, 10, 781–789.

Drupp, M.A., M.C. Freeman, B. Groom and F. Nesje (2018), “Discounting disentangled”, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. 10(4), 109-134.

Freeman, M.C. and B. Groom (2015), “Positively gamma discounting:  Combining the opinions of experts on the Social Discount Rate”.  The Economic Journal, 125, 1015–1024.

Cropper, M.L., M.C. Freeman, B. Groom and W.A. Pizer (2014), “Declining discount rates”, American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings), 104(5), 538–543.