Vienna Faculty Spotlight: Menbere Workie Tiruneh

Dr. Menbere Workie Tiruneh, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Finance for the Department of Business and Management at Webster Vienna Private University, and a part-time senior researcher at the Institute of Economic Research of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Before joining WVPU, Menbere Workie served as International MBA Instructor for more than 10 years at City University of Seattle, European Graduate Programs. In our Faculty Spotlight for April, Dr. Menbere Workie Tiruneh was kind enough to answer our questions and give us some insights into his academic philosophies!

1. What are you research interests primarily?

I have been curious in exploring wide range of research topics focusing on the “finance of economics” and the “economics of finance.” I would split my research endeavors into two parts. Like most of my peers in the field, there is research that I do purely out of curiosity. However, the main part of my research is linked to research grants. In my research career, I was involved in five research grants as principal investigator and in five grants as co-investigator. This includes the grant of the European Network of Economic Policy Research Institutes (ENEPRI) that was designed to explore the “Adequacy of Income Maintenance in the EU” and coordinated by the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. There were 14 different research institutions in Europe that were involved in this grant, and I represented the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Generally, research grants provide a great opportunity to create networks for publications and for exchanging and refining ideas for further research. There is a strong assumption in development economics that future research is a function of current research, and that networking is a fundamental leverage. As Waitley argues “If you’re not networking, you’re not working.” This is squarely the case in research. Most of the topics I have been trying to investigate revolve around examining the causes, consequences and policy implications of business cycle phenomenon, the dynamics of income disparity, external imbalances, debt-growth nexus, capital flight or illicit financial flows. In this research network, I am particularly grateful to my long-term co-authors (Dr. Maria Siranova, Dr. Filip Ostrihon and Dr. Boris Fisera) from the Slovak Academy of Sciences for being equally fascinated by the aforementioned research topics and it has been a mutually rewarding research collaboration. For instance, we are currently examining timely topics, such as “Sudden Stops in Capital Flows; Exchange Rate and Remittances Inflows and EU’s Optimal Debt Structure”, among others. I am also currently collaborating with a research paper with Prof. Bruno Sergio from Harvard University and University of Messina on the impact of remittances on long-term economic growth.

2. As a university student, what was your favorite class and why?

I was interested in several courses, however if I have to pick my most favorite class, it was a Ph.D. course (Advanced Development Economics) taught by the late prof. Stephan Klasen. He was an extraordinary professor who combined professionalism with humbleness. Graduating from Harvard University and supervised by the 1998 Nobel Laureate, Prof. Amartya Sen, Prof. Klasen always set high standards and expectations and together with his passion for the course as well as his positive attitude to his students, liking the course was not a matter of choice. My interest in Development Economics increased even more once I had been assigned to run tutorial classes to Prof. Klasen’s lectures in Development Economics for the undergraduate program, where I surprisingly found myself ranked in the top 20% of best teaching assistants in the academic year.

3. What classes will you be teaching next semester, Fall 2022? Can you tell us a bit about them?

At WVPU I have been teaching predominantly graduate courses and I have taught only Principles of Finance for the undergraduate program. In Fall 2022, I am assigned to teach two undergraduate courses (FINC-3210 Principles of Finance and GLBC-1200: Global Cornerstone Seminars) and two graduate courses (FINC-5840: International Finance and FINC-5810: Capital Budgeting and Corporate investment). The Finc-3210 course is designed to provide undergraduate students the fundamental concepts and methods in finance and the GLBC-1200 is designed to help undergraduate students develop their analytical skills. The two graduate courses are advanced courses and are designed to help our graduate students understand more rigorous topics in international finance as well as in capital budgeting and investment decisions.

4. What convinced you to become a professor? What is the best part of it?

To the first question, I believe it was due to my educational background. After high school, I graduated from College of Teachers Education, where I had studied general methods of teaching, among other courses. Moreover, my father was a priest and had many religious students in the church and I have excellent memories from his fatherly interaction with his students and his enormous patience. Although he passed away at my early age, he has left his fingerprints in my life.

To the second part of the question, well, the first reason is undoubtedly the constant learning effect. Joseph Joubert, underlined it best; “to teach is to learn twice over”. The second-equally fascinating part is the desire to help younger colleagues grow professionally. To my surprise, I often receive emails from my former students long after the courses were over and that is the highest reward to me, which I cannot compare with anything else. As Einstein stated: “Do not try to become a person of success but try to become a person of value”. I am sincerely trying to advocate and practice this life philosophy. I do still hope that I will improve with age and experience on this front. As someone said, “with age comes wisdom, unfortunately, sometimes, age comes alone”. Hopefully, that exception won’t be my case.

5. During your years in academia, what advice do you wish someone would have told you?

I have been blessed with meeting extraordinary kind and generous people in my life to whom I will remain indebted. My Ph.D. supervisor at the University of Munich in Germany, the late Prof. Stephan Klassen - whose life was unfortunately cut too short - played a great role in my life. Of course, there is always something we regret in life and some level of guilty conscious of “if I knew then, what I know now”-type of things is unavoidable. I think this is a normal reflection and a regular human behavior and as the Greek wisdom goes; “regrets are like grandchildren; they come much later.” For instance, I would have appreciated if someone had pushed me into specializing in quantitative economics or quantitative finance. However, as an economist by training, no matter what we have chosen to do in life, I know that it is impossible to eliminate opportunity costs. It is equally impossible to find explanation for everything that went opposite to what we now think would have been more appropriate in life. As Darwin underlined “gravity explains the motions of the planet, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion”. I believe we shouldn’t consume our energy trying to solve past problems with our current level of understanding, because, as Albert Einstein stated; “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” It makes more sense to focus on things we can influence and progress in life. Winston Churchill said it best; “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts”.

6. Any hidden talents or skills you would like to share with the WVPU community?

I have the pleasure of working with extraordinary intelligent colleagues at WVPU and I do not think they need my hidden skills to perform their duties. Quite the contrary, I learn from my colleagues a lot and I am grateful to many of them. However, in order to respond to the question, I would say the following.

The first important thing is to treat all the colleagues and students with respect and without bias. That is called character. As Criss Jami concludes, “Together, we form a necessary paradox; not a senseless contradiction”.

My second secret is to motivate the students that they are indeed talented, and they are our partners in the “production” and “dissemination” of knowledge. I often emphasize to them that I am not in the class to teach them but help them to think critically. I am inspired by Socrates, who presumably stated, “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think” and as Desautels added “Thinking is difficult. That's why most people judge”.

Third, I openly tell them about my humble background and the value of education in changing my life. It is equally important to be kind and patient to colleagues and students. As someone puts it “be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”.

Fourth, there are so many angry people in this world, and I am not sure if a mandatory course on “anger management” would solve the problem. I guess, this is mainly driven by the subjective and objective feeling of mistreatment and bias, which creates resentment. Forgiveness is by far superior to resentment. As Huie stated “Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace”. As Nelson Mandela concluded “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies”.

Fifth, in the presence of asymmetric information, I refrain from commenting everything I see and hear about. As Rumi emphasizes “Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation”. Don’t get me wrong, I am far from expressing perfection here, quite the contrary, there is always a room for improvement and as someone stated, “it is the biggest room in the house”. When it comes to imperfection, I am on top of the list. However, I try to follow Lombardi’s wisdom “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence”. I do strongly believe kindness and professionalism are not mutually exclusive. My last secret to my colleagues and our students is to follow Duke Ellington’s rule of life “Life has two rules: Number one, never quit; Number two, always remember rule number one”.