The Haas School welcomed Ulrike Malmendier as a half-time associate professor of finance this fall. Melmendier, who joined Berkeley as assistant professor of economics in 2006, will begin her teaching duties in fall 2011, after completing maternity leave. She will also continue to teach in the Department of Economics.
Malmendier earned a PhD in law from the University of Bonn (Germany) and a PhD in business economics from Harvard and was previously assistant professor of finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Her research focuses on corporate behavioral science, especially on the biases of investors and the influence of those biases on their investment decisions. She also studies the role of overconfidence among top managers in U.S. companies when making decisions on investment, mergers and acquisitions, and capital structure.
Melmendier says she is excited to be at Haas and expects to not only teach the students but learn from them as well.
“My work is very empirical and related to ongoing financial issues," she says, noting that she often has found her best examples from finance students whose work was related to her own. "My research and their experience were very closely linked. I’m hoping to get the same experience at Haas.“