Professor Emeritus
Michael Jensen Photo: Harvard Business School

BOSTON, Jan. 5, 2010 — Michael C. Jensen, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School, has received the 2009 Morgan Stanley-American Finance Association (AFA) Award for Excellence in Financial Economics. According to Jeremy Stein, the Moise Y. Safra Professor of Economics at Harvard University, who chaired the AFA Selection Committee, Jensen's "research on agency theory, organizational design, and incentives has helped to define the modern paradigm for how both academics and practitioners think about many of the most fundamental issues in corporate finance, corporate governance, and law and economics, to name just a few of the fields that have been shaped by his thinking."

The award includes a $200,000 cash grant that Jensen will donate to the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard Business School, and the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester, where he taught for more than 20 years. He was a member of the active faculty at Harvard Business School from 1985 to 2000.

Jensen is the author or coauthor of more than 100 scientific papers, along with numerous articles, comments, and editorials published in the media on a wide range of economic, finance, and business-related topics. He has also authored, coauthored, or edited five books, including Theory of the Firm: Governance, Residual Claims, and Organizational Forms (Harvard University Press, 2000), Foundations of Organizational Strategy (Harvard University Press, 1998), and The Modern Theory of Corporate Finance (McGraw Hill, 1984).

In 1973 Jensen cofounded the Journal of Financial Economics, serving as managing editor from 1987 to 1997, when he became founding editor. In 1994 he cofounded and is currently chairman of Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc., which is devoted to the electronic publication of scientific working papers in the social sciences.