Lessons in finance and history
When Dr David Smith crossed the stage to receive his doctoral degree yesterday afternoon, it was the fifth time he had been capped at a Massey University graduation ceremony.
Dr Smith, who has been a lecturer at Massey for 12 years, also has a Bachelor of Arts in History and Mathematics, an Honours degree in Mathematics, a Bachelor of Business Studies in Accounting Studies, and a Masters in Finance.
“Each time I finished my studies and went out into the workforce, I decided my career prospects would be improved by further study. Somewhere along the line I became an academic, and found I was both studying and working at Massey,” Dr Smith says.
His PhD thesis, which analysed the capital structure and financing arrangements of New Zealand firms, took six years to complete.
“I’m really grateful for the opportunity to do my PhD, and Massey has been very supportive,” Dr Smith says. “It is something I’ve wanted to do since developing an interest in New Zealand corporate finance because there is so little published information on the subject.”
One of the most interesting things to come out of his research was the level to which New Zealand companies use debt to aggressively compete with rivals.
“I think this is probably the result of the more competitive trading environment we’ve had for the past 25 years in New Zealand since market deregulation,” Dr Smith says. “It is interesting when you compare New Zealand to countries like the United States where more firms issue equity to raise funds – here they tend to use debt instead.”
Dr Smith is keen to continue researching the corporate financing of New Zealand firms to “better understand the factors that drive the way they operate”, including comparisons to overseas companies.
He is also keen to marry his interest in finance with his love of history, the focus of his first degree – and he argues the two subjects aren’t as disparate as they might seem.
“I think we can learn a lot from financial history. Just take the global financial crisis, that’s history in action,” he says. “We don’t always take on board the lessons from the past, but we would be a lot more knowledgable if we did.”
In the meantime Dr Smith says he is savouring the experience of another graduation ceremony, and sharing the stage with some of his students.
“Yes, it’s been a lot of hard work, but I can really appreciate what the postgraduate students I supervise are going through now,” he says.
Dr Smith is one of 42 doctoral candidates who will graduate during Massey University’s five Manawatu campus ceremonies this week, where a total of 1326 students will be capped. He joins two other College of Business colleagues – Dr Warwick Stent and Dr Jeffrey Stangl – who both received their PhDs at the Albany campus graduation ceremonies last month.