Finance
Awards & Honors
Recent Awards
Josh Lerner has been named the 2010 winner of the prestigious Global Award for Entrepreneurship for his "pioneering research into venture capital and venture capital-backed entrepreneurship. Among his most important contributions is the synthesis of the fields of finance and entrepreneurship. He has also made several important contributions in the area of entrepreneurial innovation, spanning issues relating to alliances, patents, and open-source project development." The annual award was established in 1996 by the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum, the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, and Sweden's Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
Josh Lerner received a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the Technical University of Munich in 2009.
Paul Gompers, Josh Lerner, and David Scharfstein won the Second Place 2008 Fama-DFA Prize for the Best Paper Published in the Journal of Financial Economics in the Areas of Capital Markets and Asset Pricing for the paper (with Anna Kovner) "Venture capital investment cycles: the impact of public markets" (Volume 87, Issue 1, January 2008).
Mihir A. Desai and C. Fritz Foley won the 2008 Pearson/Prentice Hall Prize for Best Paper in Financial Management for the paper (with James R. Hines Jr.) "Dividend Policy inside the Multinational Firm" (2007).
Robert C. Merton was inducted into the "Fixed Income Analyst Society Hall of Fame" in 2008.
Robert C. Merton has been selected as the recipient of the 2008 Robert A. Muh Award in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT. The Muh Award honors MIT alumni who have made outstanding contributions in one or more of these fields.
Robert C. Merton was awarded the honorary degree, Doctor of Science Honoris Causa, by Claremont Graduate University, Claremont California at a ceremony on May 17, 2008.
Nicolas P. Retsinas was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Public Service from Rhode Island College in 2008.
Nicolas P. Retsinas was inducted into the "Affordable Housing Hall of Fame" in 2008 by Affordable Housing Finance to recognize his outstanding achievement in the housing industry.
Lauren Cohen won the 2008 Smith Breeden Prize for a distinguished paper in the Journal of Finance for the paper (with Andrea Frazzini) "Economic Links and Predictable Returns" (2008). The paper also received the 2008 Emerald Management Reviews' Citation of Excellence.
Ken Froot was awarded the 2008 Witt Award of the American Risk and Insurance Association for his article, "Risk Management, Capital Budgeting, and Capital Structure Policy for Insurers and Reinsurers" (Journal of Risk and Insurance 74, no. 2, June 2007).
Carliss Y. Baldwin received the 2008 Distinguished Speaker Award from the Technology Management Section of INFORMS.
Robert C. Merton received the 2008 Distinguished Finance Educator Award from the Financial Education Association.
Mihir A. Desai was the Second Place Winner of the 2007 Jensen Prize for Best Paper Published in the Journal of Financial Economics in the areas of Corporate Finance and Organization for his paper with Alexander Dyck and Luigi Zingales, "Theft and Taxes," Journal of Financial Economics, 84, no. 3 (June 2007).
André Perold was awarded the 2007 Graham and Dodd Award for Best Perspectives Article from the Financial Analysts Journal and the CFA Institute for the paper "Fundamentally Flawed Indexing." The Best Perspectives Award recognizes the timeliest and most thought-provoking opinion article in the Financial Analysts Journal for this year.
Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy have won the 2007 Smith Breeden Prize for a distinguished paper in the Journal of Finance for their paper entitled, "Supply and Demand Shifts in the Shorting Market" (with Karl Diether).
Lauren Cohen, Christopher Malloy, and Andrea Frazzini have won 2007 Barclays Global Investors Prize from the European Finance Association for Best Paper on Asset Pricing for their paper entitled, "The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns."
Lauren Cohen and Breno Schmidt won the 2007 Society of Quantitative Analysts Award from the Western Finance Association for Best Paper in Quantitative Investments and the 2006 Barclays Global Investors Prize from the European Finance Association for Best Paper on Asset Allocation for their paper entitled, "Attracting Flows by Attracting Big Clients: Conflicts of Interest and Mutual Fund Portfolio Choice."
Robert C. Merton was profiled as one of the 40 People of Power & Influence in Finance during the Last 40 Years, by Institutional Investor magazine in its special May 2007 issue celebrating the magazine's 40th anniversary. The story was entitled "Theory and Practice."
Robert C. Merton was profiled as a pioneer in establishing modern risk management by Risk magazine in its special July 2007 issue celebrating the magazine's 20th anniversary. The story was entitled "A Model Prophet."
Robert C. Merton delivered the Nancy L. Schwartz Memorial Lecture at the Kellogg School of Management on April 5, 2006. His address was titled "How to Pursue Both Comparative Advantage and Efficient Diversification of Risk: An Application of Derivative Securities." The lecture series honors the late Professor Schwartz, the first woman on the Kellogg faculty to be named to an endowed chair.
Robert C. Merton received the 2006 PRIMIA Higher Standard Award, from the Professional Risk Manager's International Association at an award ceremony held in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2006.
Belén Villalonga and Raphael Amit won the 2007 Standard Life Investments Finance Prize for the best paper in the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) Finance Working Paper series, and the 2006 Family Firms Institute Best Unpublished Research Award, for the paper "How Are U.S. Family Firms Controlled?" (previously titled "Benefits and costs of control-enhancing mechanisms in U.S. family firms")
Luis M. Viceira, along with John Y. Campbell, was awarded the 2005 Graham and Dodd Award for Excellence in Financial Writing from the Financial Analysts Journal and the CFA Institute for the paper "The Term Structure of the Risk-Return Tradeoff" published in the Financial Analysts Journal in 2005.
In 2005, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology established the Robert C. Merton (1970) Professorship in Financial Economics.
Joshua Coval and Tyler Shumway received the 2005 Smith Breeden Prize for Best Paper in the Journal of Finance for their paper entitled "Do Behavioral Biases Affect Prices?" Journal of Finance 60, no. 1 (February 2005).
Li Jin, along with Stewart Myers, has won the 2005 FAME Research Prize for the paper entitled, "R-Squared Around the World: New Theory and Tests" forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics.