The Fama of modern finance

When Eugene Fama enrolled at Chicago Booth School of Business in 1960, “finance was a joke”, he says in a candid and fascinating insight into his more than 50 years as a student, academic and teacher at the university.

The essay, published by Chicago Booth’s Capital Ideas, details Fama’s own history but also a short history of finance including how the efficient-market hypothesis was born.

Fama, who is often called the “father of modern finance”, calls the Black-Scholes paper on option pricing the most important paper in economics of the twentieth century.

“No other paper has to be learned by every single economist getting a PhD and has also created an industry – the derivatives industry.”

Fama, who also got into Harvard, chose to go to Chicago because he was advised that “it was more academically oriented than Harvard”.

He is the Robert R McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, and received a MBA and PhD from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Sponsored Content

“I love my work,” he says in the essay. “I have no intention of stopping as long as I’m breathing – and I may even do it after that.”

To read the full essay, click here.

Leave a Comment

Sort content by

KIC partners with Australian, Malaysian sovereign peers

South Korea’s sovereign wealth fund (SWF), the $25 billion Korea Investment Corporation (KIC), has signed cooperation agreements with Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) and Malaysia’s Khazanah Nasional Berhad to share resources and pursue investments with the government-owned entities. mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

FRR completes review, reduces equities

France’s pension reserve fund, the €28.9 billion ($40.6 billion) Fonds De Reserve Pour Les Retraites, has completed a strategic asset allocation review that began last January, resulting in a dramatic reduction in equities. mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

CalPERS limits derivatives use

In line with its recently-approved leverage policy, the $181 billion fund for Californian public employees, CalPERS, has reviewed its derivatives policy for global equities, with notional leverage constrained to a new limit of 10 per cent of the value of the global equities portfolio. mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

The marginal investor: thoughts from the edge

Getting past past performance In his top1000funds.com blog on outlying investment issues, Jack Gray Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Paul Woolley Centre for Capital Markets Dysfunctionality at the University of Technology, Sydney, contemplates the allure of past performance. mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

CFA members vote on short selling rules

As the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ponders various alternative rules on an appropriate limit on short selling in distressed markets, a survey of members by the CFA Institute Centre for Financial Market Integrity shows the least preferred method is a ban on short selling in a particular security for the remainder of the day

ESG progress for large funds: USS

The £23 billion ($37.7 billion) Universities Superannuation Scheme is the UK’s second largest pension fund and a signatory to the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment. Kristen Paech talks to the fund’s co-head of responsible investment, David Russell, about the role institutional investors are playing in effecting environmental, social and governance change. mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1

Previous