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Author Bios
The following contributors comprise the SEC Settlements research team.
Dr. Elaine Buckberg
NERA Senior Vice President
+1 212 345 5326
elaine.buckberg@nera.com
Dr. Buckberg directs projects in the areas of securities economics, finance, valuation,
and regulation. She provides expert testimony and litigation support in these areas
as well as advisory consulting on risk management issues. Her testimony and litigation
experience includes regulatory, criminal, and civil securities cases.
In securities litigation, Dr. Buckberg has led engagements involving hedge funds,
subprime and structured finance securities, mutual fund market timing and fees,
IPO allocation, broker-dealer disputes, insider trading, and disgorgement. She has
extensive experience with shareholder class actions. Dr. Buckberg has also directed
projects in complex commercial litigation involving valuation in mergers and acquisitions,
fraudulent conveyance, and bankruptcy. In addition to expert testimony, Dr. Buckberg
has made presentations on behalf of clients to federal and state securities regulators.
Her advisory work includes integrated modeling of credit and market risk for the
valuation of new financial derivatives.
Prior to joining NERA, Dr. Buckberg was a Vice President at Morgan Stanley, where
she was first a currency strategist, then a regulatory policy specialist in the
market risk division.
Dr. Buckberg began her career as an Economist at the International Monetary Fund,
covering a broad range of issues including strategies for crisis resolution in the
event of sovereign defaults, US tax policy, and the need for institutional reform
in Russia in order to promote growth.
Her research has been published in International Finance, IMF Staff Papers, World
Bank Economic Review, The Business Lawyer, Class Action Litigation, and
The Corporate Compliance and Regulatory Newsletter. Dr. Buckberg is a member
of the American Economic Association.
Dr. Buckberg received her PhD in economics from MIT with concentrations in macroeconomics
and international finance. She received her BA in economics and English literature
from Yale University, magna cum laude and with distinction in English literature.
She is fluent in Spanish and French.
Jan Larsen
NERA Senior Consultant
+1 212 345 3554
jan.larsen@nera.com
Mr. Larsen's work at NERA is in the areas of securities, finance, insurance, reinsurance,
and mass torts. He has overseen projects involving complex economic issues including
inflation per share and damaged trading volume in securities class actions, questions
of market efficiency, earnings smoothing, finite reinsurance, insurer-reinsurer
disputes, and mass tort valuation. The contexts for these projects have included
shareholder class actions, criminal investigations, bankruptcy proceedings, and
SEC enforcement actions. Mr. Larsen's work typically involves the utilization of
mathematical and statistical techniques. He is currently included in the directory
of expert services for the legal profession on BestLawyers.com.
Dr. James A. Overdahl
NERA Vice President
+1 202 466 9256
james.overdahl@nera.com
Dr. Overdahl is a Vice President in NERA's Securities and Finance Practice. Prior
to joining NERA, Dr. Overdahl was Chief Economist and Director of the Office of
Economic Analysis for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He served
as principal economic advisor on policy, rulemaking, and litigation support and
supervised the SEC's economics program. From 2002 to 2007, Dr. Overdahl served as
Chief Economist and Director of the Office of the Chief Economist for the US Commodity
Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In his positions at the SEC and CFTC, Dr. Overdahl
testified before each Commission. He also testified before Congress on behalf of
the SEC and CFTC, and provided staff support and briefings for members of the President's
Working Group on Financial Markets.
While serving as Chief Economist of the SEC, Dr. Overdahl advised the Commission
on a wide range of policy matters, including credit default swaps and other OTC
derivatives, OTC clearing, high-frequency trading and related market structure issues,
securities lending, short selling, market data fees, credit rating agencies, structured
financial products, Sarbanes-Oxley provisions regarding internal controls, and new
products. In addition, he advised the Commission and other government agencies on
several matters related to the financial crisis of 2008. He also advised the Commission
on investigation matters, enforcement proceedings, civil monetary penalties, disgorgement,
and fair-funds distribution plans.
While serving as Chief Economist of the CFTC, Dr. Overdahl advised the Commission
on policy matters related to exchange-traded futures and options, OTC derivatives
(particularly energy derivatives), commodity price speculation, risk management
and hedging, new products and markets, algorithmic trading, position limits, clearing,
commodity index investing, hedge funds, and error trades. He also advised the Commission
of enforcement matters related to commodity price manipulation and the alleged false
reporting of natural gas transactions by several entities. In addition, he advised
the Commission on restitution and civil monetary penalties.
Dr. Overdahl has also served as a Senior Financial Economist for the Risk Analysis
Division of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). He performed
on-site assessments of risk measurement models employed by Tier 1 dealer banks,
and assessments of model validation procedures within the risk management units
of money center banks, of compliance with the Value-at-Risk requirements of the
Basel Market Risk Capital Rule, and of the effectiveness of hedging and risk measurement
techniques used to manage market risk in securitization conduits.
Prior to joining the OCC, Dr. Overdahl served as a Financial Economist in the CFTC's
Division of Economic Analysis and the SEC's Office of Economic Analysis. He has
taught as an Adjunct Professor of Finance at George Washington University, the University
of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, Virginia Tech, and
George Mason University. Dr. Overdahl also served as Assistant Professor of Finance
at the University of Texas at Dallas School of Management.
Dr. Overdahl has published extensively in leading economics and finance journals,
including the Journal of Business, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Financial
and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Futures Markets, Journal of Derivatives, and
Journal of Alternative Investments, and has contributed numerous chapters to published
volumes on finance and economics. In addition, he has co-edited and co-authored,
with Robert Kolb, four books in multiple editions, including Financial Derivatives:
Pricing and Risk Management and Futures, Options, and Swaps.
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