A Mississippi native, Professor Ward joined The American University of Paris in 2001. After a first degree in Philosophy at Boston University (1985), he continued at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München before working as a financial aid officer, then a commercial fisherman in Sitka, Alaska. He served as Youth Minister at Christ Church, Greenwich, then tested a vocation as a Benedictine monk. He afterward worked in futures markets at the Chicago Board of Trade focusing on trading and research. After a decade as an analyst, database manager, statistician, and economist, he completed a Master of Science in Finance at The George Washington University (1999). He founded Andres, McKenzie & Ward which was acquired by Alternative and Derivative Investments (ADI) of Paris, a hedge fund. He served as high yield bond investment manager for ADI, and began teaching at AUP to distract himself from market stress. Professor Ward joined AXA Investment Managers as head of High Yield Investments, then joined AUP full-time as Assistant Professor of Finance in 2013, and currently is completing his Doctoral thesis in Finance at L’Université Paris. Ward currently researches hedge funds, the persistence of excess returns, fixed income & credit markets, corporate capital structure, and exotic derivatives. He recently was Visiting Professor of Economics at Deep Springs College where he taught computational and behavioral finance.
In April 2016, Professor James Ward had an article published on the USA election process and prediction markets where you can bet on outcomes.