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Andrei Shleifer

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Andrei Shleifer
NationalityRussian American
Academic career
FieldFinancial economics
Behavioral finance
School or
tradition		Neoclassical economics
InfluencesPeter A. Diamond, Lawrence Summers

Andrei Shleifer (Template:PronEng) (born February 20, 1961) is a Russian American economist.

Life

He was born in Russia to a Jewish family and emigrated to Rochester, New York, as a teenager in 1976, where he attended an inner-city school and learned English from episodes of Charlie's Angels.[1] He then studied economics, obtaining his A.B. from Harvard University in 1982 and Ph.D. from MIT in 1986. As a freshman at Harvard, Shleifer took Math 55 with Brad DeLong; he has said that the course made him realize he was not destined to be a mathematician, but the experience gave him a future co-author.[1]

He has held a post in the Department of Economics at Harvard University since 1991 and was, from 2001 through 2006, the Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Economics.[2]

In 1999, Shleifer was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to the most promising US economist under 40, for his seminal works on corporate finance (corporate governance, law and finance), the economics of financial markets (deviations from efficient markets), and the economics of transition. He is among the 10 most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc and is listed top 1 in the category "Most-Cited Scientists in Economics & Business" [3]

Work

Andrei Shleifer is one of the most cited economists in the world, with more than four thousand citations. (Citation rate is one measure of a scientist's impact on thought and practice in a particular field of endeavor.) His work focuses mostly on financial economics, where he has contributed to the field of behavioral finance.

In recent years, his research has focused on the legal origins theory (also sometimes known as law and finance theory), which claims that the legal tradition a country adheres to (such as common law or various types of civil law) is an important determining factor for a country's development, most of all financial development.

Shleifer and his coauthors (Rafael La Porta, Robert W. Vishny, Simeon Djankov and Florencio Lopez de Silanes) have written extensively on corporate governance.

In 1994 Shleifer had with fellow academics — and behavioral finance specialists — Josef Lakonishok and Robert Vishny a Chicago-based money management firm known as LSV Asset Management. As of February 2006 it managed about $50 billion in quantitative value equity portfolios, though, according to the firm's website, Shleifer no longer had an ownership stake.[4]

Activities in Russia

During the early 1990s, Andrei Shleifer was an advisor to Anatoly Chubais, the then vice-premier of Russia, and was one of the engineers of the Russian privatization. During that time, Harvard University was under a contract with the United States Agency for International Development, which paid Harvard and its employees to advise the Russian government. The results of privatization in Russia were criticized widely in Russia and western academic circles. Under Anatoly Chubais, privatization led to valuable Russian business assets being acquired at extremely cheap prices amid accusations of rigged auctions.

Shleifer was also tasked with establishing a stock market for Russia that would be a world-class capital market. That effort was also unsuccessful, and became mired in charges of corruption and self-dealing.[5]

Lawsuit

Under the False Claims Act, the US government sued Harvard, Shleifer, Shleifer's wife Nancy Zimmerman, Shleifer's assistant Jonathan Hay, and Hay's girlfriend (now his wife) Elizabeth Hebert, because these individuals bought Russian stocks and GKOs while they were working on the country's privatization, which potentially contravened Harvard's contract with USAID. In 2001, a federal judge dismissed all charges against Zimmerman and Hebert.[6] In June 2004, a federal judge ruled that Harvard had violated the contract but was not liable for treble damages, but that Shleifer and Hay might be held liable for treble damages (up to $105 million) if found guilty by a jury.[7]

In June 2005, Harvard and Shleifer announced that they had reached a tentative settlement with the US government. On August 3 of the same year, Harvard University, Shleifer and the Justice department reached an agreement under which the university paid $26.5 million to settle the five-year-old lawsuit. Shleifer was also responsible for paying $2 million dollars worth of damages, though he did not admit any wrong doing. A firm owned by his wife previously had paid $1.5 million in an out of court settlement.

Because Harvard University paid most of the damages and allowed Shleifer to retain his faculty position, the settlement provoked allegations of favoritism on the part of Harvard's outgoing president Lawrence Summers, who is Shleifer's close friend and mentor. Shleifer's conduct was reviewed by Harvard's internal ethics committee. In October 2006, at the close of that review, Shleifer released a statement making it clear that he remains on Harvard's faculty. However, according to the Boston Globe, he has been stripped of his honorary title of Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Economics.[2]

Works

  • Boycko, Maxim (1995). Privatizing Russia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 026202389X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • ——— (1997). "A Survey of Corporate Governance". Journal of Finance. 52 (2): 737–783. doi:10.2307/2329497. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • La Porta, R. (1998). "Law and Finance". Journal of Political Economy. 106 (6): 1113–1155. doi:10.1086/250042. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • La Porta, R. (1999). "Corporate Ownership Around the World". Journal of Finance. 54 (2): 471–517. doi:10.1111/0022-1082.00115. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • La Porta, R. (2000). "Investor Protection and Corporate Governance". Journal of Financial Economics. 58 (1–2): 3–27. doi:10.1016/S0304-405X(00)00065-9. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Shleifer, Andrei (2000). Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198292279. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Djankov, S. (2002). "The Regulation of Entry". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 117 (1): 1–37. doi:10.1162/003355302753399436. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • Djankov, S. (2003). "Courts". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 118 (2): 453–517. doi:10.1162/003355303321675437. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • Botero, J. (2004). "The Regulation of Labor". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 119 (4): 1339–1382. doi:10.1162/0033553042476215. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • Mulligan, C. (2005). "Conscription as Regulation". American Law and Economics Review. 7 (1): 85–111. doi:10.1093/aler/ahi009. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Bhayani, Paras D. (June 4, 2007). "Andrei Shleifer and J. Bradford DeLong". Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2009-03-12.
  2. ^ a b Bombardieri, Marcella (2006-10-14). "Harvard professor loses honorary title in ethics violation". Boston Globe. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ "Most-Cited Scientists in Economics & Business" ISI Web of Knowledge
  4. ^ http://www.dailyii.com/article.asp?PositionID=&ArticleID=1020662&p=33
  5. ^ http://www.dailyii.com/article.asp?PositionID=&ArticleID=1020662&p=10
  6. ^ http://www.dailyii.com/article.asp?PositionID=&ArticleID=1020662&p=32
  7. ^ The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Harvard To Pay $26.5 Million in HIID Settlement
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