"The conference will address contemporary topics in finance and accounting, with an emphasis on capital markets, and will include sessions on investment analysis, mutual-fund management and earnings expectations," said Michael Rozeff, conference co-director and UB finance professor.

Michael Jensen, professor of business administration at Harvard University, will deliver the keynote address, "The Brain and Non-Rational Behavior," which will focus on human behavior, including the behavior of investors in the market.

Highlights will include sessions on earnings expectations and share prices, Charles Trzcinka, UB associate professor of finance; "The Impact of Earnings Pronouncements," Sandip Bhagat, president, Travelers Investment Management; "The New Era in Earnings Expectations," Edward Keon, senior vice president, I/B/E/S International; mutual-fund management, Martin Gruber, finance professor, New York University; "Performance Measurement of Institutional Money Managers," Trzcinka; "Off Shore Hedge Funds: Survival and Performance," finance professors Stephen Brown, NYU and William Goetzman and Roger Ibbotson, Yale University; investment analysis, Louis Chan, finance professor, University of Illinois; "The Calendar Structure of Risk and Expected Returns on Stock," Joseph Ogden, chair of UB's Department of Finance and Managerial Economics, and "Firm Performance: Long-Run Stock Market Performance Following Spin-offs," finance professors Hemang Desai and Prem Jain, Tulane University.