Michael J. Brennan (born November 14, 1942) is emeritus professor of finance at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Prof. Brennan co-designed the Brennan-Schwartz interest rate model and was a pioneer of real options theory. His writings on real options and asset pricing, corporate finance, derivative securities, market microstructure, the role of information in capital markets, and risk management have been published extensively.
He is a former president of the American Finance Association, and has served as editor of the Journal of Finance and was the founding editor of the Review of Financial Studies; the Michael Brennan Award is named for him. He was a founding partner and director of the Real Options Group since its inception. He has served as consultant to businesses and governments in the USA and Canada. He was previously a professor at the London Business School.
Professor Brennan holds a B.Phil. in Economics (1964) from Oxford University, an MBA (1967) from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. in Business (1970) from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
On May 22, 2011, Prof. Brennan was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Notre Dame.