Alison Kelly, PhD

Employment History

• Suffolk University, Boston, MA
  Professor of Economics (2003-present)
  Associate Professor of Economics (1997-2003)
  Assistant Professor of Economics (1992-1997)

• Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
  Adjunct Professor (1991 – 2013, 2016)
  
  
• Citizens Financial Group, Boston, MA
  Consultant for Model Validation Group (2014 – 2016)

• CFA Society Boston, Boston, MA
  Instructor (2001 – 2014)
  Curriculum Coordinator (2001 – 2007)

Biography

Dr. Kelly is an applied statistician with research interests in multiple business disciplines. She values research that is broadly defined, with appeal to both academics and practitioners. Her recent research interests include pedagogical issues in teaching business analytics and the cutoff selection in classification models.

Dr. Kelly is an accomplished author, having published three highly successful textbooks in Business Statistics and Business Analytics with McGraw-Hill. These textbooks have become McGraw-Hill’s most successful brand in the fields of Business Statistics and Business Analytics.

Honors

• McGraw-Hill Product of the Year Award for Business Analytics – Communicating with Numbers, 2020
• Boston Security Analysts Society – Member of the Month, February, 2005
• Teaching Excellence Award, 1991, Boston College
• Multidisciplinary Training Scholarship, 1987, University of Southern California
• Haynes Fellowship, 1986, University of Southern California

Publications

Books

• Business Analytics – Communicating with Numbers, co-authored with Sanjiv Jaggia, Kevin Lertwachara, and Leida Chen, McGraw-Hill Publishers (2021, 2023).
• Business Statistics – Communicating with Numbers, co-authored with Sanjiv Jaggia, McGraw-Hill Publishers (2011, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2025).
• Essentials of Business Statistics – Using Excel, co-authored with Sanjiv Jaggia, McGraw-Hill Publishers (2014, 2020, 2024).

Journal Articles

• “Applying the CRISP-DM Framework for Teaching Business Analytics,” co-authored with Sanjiv Jaggia, Kevin Lertwachara, and Leida Chen, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education (September 2020).
• “Student Performance in an Introductory Business Statistics Course: Does Delivery Mode Matter?” co-authored with Jonathan Haughton, in Journal of Education for Business, 90 (January 2015).
• “Modeling Skewness and Elongation in Financial Returns: The Case of Exchange-Traded Funds,” co-authored with Sanjiv Jaggia, in Applied Financial Economics, 19 (August-September 2009).
• “Practical Considerations when Estimating in the Presence of Autocorrelation,” co-authored with Sanjiv Jaggia, Case Studies in Business, Industry and Government Statistics, 2:1, (May 2008).
• “Modeling aggregate productivity growth: A note on returns to scale,” in Focus on Economic Growth and Productivity, ed. L.A. Finley, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2005.
• “A Note on Modeling Aggregate Productivity Growth: The Importance of Imperfect Markets,” The Journal of Macroeconomics, 23 (Winter 2001).
• “The Use of Frontier Estimation in Direct Marketing,” co-authored with Dominique Haughton, Jonathan Haughton and Tim Moriarty, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 14 (April 2000).
• “An Analysis of the Factors that Influence Student Performance: A Fresh Approach to an Old Debate,” co-authored with Sanjiv Jaggia, Contemporary Economic Policy, 17 (April 1999).
• “Patterns of State Productivity Growth in the U.S. Farm Sector: Linking State and Aggregate Models”, co-authored with Frank Gollop, Eldon Ball and Greg Swinand, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 81 (February 1999).
• “Sectoral productivity growth and price-marginal cost margins in the intermediate goods market,” Review of Income and Wealth, 43 (June 1997).