Education

Ph.D., Business Administration with a Finance Concentration, UNC Charlotte
Public Policy Research and Analysis (CERT), UNC Charlotte
MBA, UNC Charlotte
Master of Real Estate, UNC Charlotte
Master of Urban Design, UNC Charlotte
Master of Architecture, UNC Charlotte
Bachelor of Music Composition, Georgia Southern

Background

Michael-Paul (Jack Kelly) James is a clinical assistant professor of finance at the University of South Carolina's Darla Moore School of Business and the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management, where he helps lead a new collaboration between the two colleges on real estate education.

At its core, his research is about human behavior. Using large administrative datasets and careful identification strategies, he studies how political identity shapes housing decisions, how loan officer relationships affect mortgage refinancing, how competition and visibility limit professional bias, and how scaffolded instruction and engineered peer networks shape learning in his classroom. Across these projects, the common thread is the same: people rarely act on information alone. Beliefs, relationships, and incentives move the outcome.

That last question doubles as his teaching method. AI already does take-home work now; class time doesn't. Drawing on a background in athletic coaching and the principle of maximizing "touches on the ball," he built a classroom where only preparation happens at home: students encounter material repeatedly across formats, then work through it live, in structured discussion before cold calling, randomized quiz partners, and peer interaction engineered to keep the real work in the room rather than outsourced to a chatbot.

Honors / Awards

• Finalist, Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, instructor of record category, 2025
• Semifinalist for Best Paper, Financial Management Association International Annual Meeting, 2025
• On-MLS Study in Charlotte Metropolitan Grant, 2024
• Graduate School Teaching Fellowship, 2022-23
• Rail Transit & Residential Sorting, National Science Foundation Grant, 2021
• Gender Bias in Judicial System Grant, 2020
• Joanna R. Baker Memorial Graduate Fellowship, 2019-20
• Real Estate Grant Recipient, 2017-18
• Magna cum laude, 2000

Research Interests

• Political economy of finance
• Behavioral biases
• Real estate finance
• Empirical asset pricing
• ESG and sustainable investment
• Housing markets
• Mortgage refinancing
• Green finance
• Finance education and peer networks

Teaching

•  HTMT/SPTE 477 – Commercial Real Estate Development for the HRSM Industries

Professional Affiliations

• Center for Real Estate alumni organization, marketing chair, 2023-present
• City of Charlotte Alternative Compliance Review Board, 2025-present
• City of Charlotte Alternative Compliance Review Committee, 2019-25

Research Publications

James, M.-P., Nilsson, I., & Delmelle, E. C. (2025). When the train never comes: Property value impacts from the announcement and cancellation of a light rail project. The Professional Geographer, 77(3), 301-313. https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2025.2460995

James, M.-P., Beorkrem, C., & Ellinger, J. (2018). The mere exposure effect in architecture. In K. De Rycke et al., Humanizing Digital Reality. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6611-5_49