EJ Kwak

Dr. Eun Jin (EJ) Kwak specializes in financial risk management utilizing machine and deep learning techniques. Before entering the academic profession, she worked as a financial analyst at J.P. Morgan and UBS security companies. Dr. Kwak is the co-author of several peer-reviewed research papers, and she serves as a member of the editorial board for Financial Service Review.

Research Interests

Financial risk management, Risk tolerance/aversion assessment, Behavioral finance, Personal financial planning, Big data analysis, Machine/Deep learning.

Publications

• “Distrust of banks among the unbanked and banked,” (with Grable, J. E., and Archuleta, K), International Journal of Bank Marketing, 2023.
• “The disappointment dilemma: The role of expectation proclivity and disappointment aversion in describing financial risk aversion and investing risk-taking behavior,” (with Grable, J.E.), Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, 2022, 33(2), 1 – 19.
• “An assessment of the association between Political orientation and financial risk tolerance,” (with Grable, J. E., and Warmath, D.), Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 2022, 15(199), 1 – 16.
• “Conceptualizing the use of the term financial risk by non-academics and academics using Twitter messages and ScienceDirect paper abstracts,” (with Grable, J.E.), Social Network Analysis and Mining, 2021, 11(1), 1 – 14.
• “Soft landings: Extending the cushion hypothesis to financial well-being in collectivistic cultures,” (with Warmath D., Chen, P. J., and Grable, J.E.), Journal of Consumer Affairs, 2021, 55(4), 1563 –1590.
• “A simplified measure of investor risk aversion,” (with Grable, J.E., Fulk, M., and Routh, A.), Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 2020, 34(1), 7 – 34.
• “Self-empowerment among widows: A financial planning perspective,” (with Mattia, L., Grable, J. E., West, C. L., Leitz, L. Y., and Rehl, K. M.), Journal of Financial Planning, 2020, 33(10), 52 – 60.
• “The role of signaling when promoting diversity and inclusion at the firm level: A financial advisory professional case study,” (with White, K., McCoy, M., Love, K., Bruce, E., and Grable, J. E.), Advances in Business Research, 2019, 9(1), 1 – 16.
• “Transit information utilization during an extreme weather event: An analysis of smartphone app data,” (with Remy, C., Brakewood, C., Ghahramani, N., and Peters, J.), Transportation Research Record, 2018, 2672(1), 90 – 100.
• “Real-time riders: A first look at user interaction data from the back end of a transit and shared mobility smartphone app,” (with Brakewood, C., Ghahramani, N., Peters, J., and Sion, J.), Transportation Research Record, 2017, 2658(1), 56 – 63.
•  "A domain-specific measure of investment risk preference," (with Grable, J. E.), Financial Services Review, 2025.
• "To bank or not to bank: describing the banking status of black households," (with Grable, J. E., Archuleta, K., and Watkins, K.), International Journal of Bank Marketing, 2025.
• "Electroencephalographic (EEG) brain wave patterns as descriptors of financial risk-taking behavior," (with Grable, J. E.), Journal of Gambling Issues, 2025.
• "A comparison of financial risk-tolerance assessment methods in predicting subsequent risk tolerance and future portfolio choices," (with Grable, J. E.), Risks, 2024.
• "Ownership of cash value life insurance among rural households: Utilization of machine learning algorithms to find predictors," (with Heo, W., Grable, J. E., and Park, H. J), Mathematics, 2024.
• "Identifying hidden factors associated with household emergency fund holdings: A machine learning application," (with Heo, W., and Grable, J. E.),  Mathematics, 2024. 

Education

• Ph.D. Financial Planning, Housing, and Consumer Economics, University of Georgia
• M.S. Business Management with Large-Scale Data Analysis, City University of New York-College of Staten Island