Loyola's Mark Johnson receives national Abramson Award

Mark Johnson, assistant professor of finance at Loyola University Maryland’s Sellinger School of Business and Management, received the 2015 Adolph G. Abramson Award from the National Association for Business Economics for an article he co-authored on the financial literacy of Americans.

Johnson and co-author Douglas Lamdin, professor of economics at UMBC, are the only two scholars in the country honored with the award, given each year to recognize one outstanding article published in the journal Business Economics. Johnson and Lamdin’s article, “Gauging the Financial Capability of Americans,” used recent survey data to confirm that individuals and families need extra attention to better understand their day-to-day finances.

“More needs to be done to begin teaching people how finances work at an earlier age, especially considering personal finance will only get more complex as the number of investment choices available to customers continues to increase over time,” Johnson said.

In the article, Johnson examines the actual knowledge of individuals, investigates how they self-assess their financial capability and knowledge, and analyzes the way these relate to financial outcomes. He and Lamdin also examine the way these measures relate to demographic variables. Johnson plans to build on this research to develop and teach a personal finance course.

Johnson has taught finance at the graduate and undergraduate level at Loyola since 2010. He researches financial markets, financial institutions, financial literacy, investments and behavioral finance, and his writings on these topics have been published in numerous academic journals. He earned a doctorate in financial economics from the University of New Orleans in 2010 after completing two master’s degree programs in finance.

Previous winners of the Abramson award include former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers and Stanford University Economics Professor John Taylor.