Berkeley Haas PhD alumnus Matteo Maggiori has been awarded the American Finance Association’s 2021 Fischer Black Prize, which honors the top finance scholar under 40.
Maggiori, PhD 12, is an international macroeconomics and finance scholar whose research topics have included the analysis of international capital flows, exchange rate dynamics, bubbles, and the role of tax havens. He is an associate professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a research affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research.
“I was deeply honored to receive the call saying that I had been awarded the Fischer Black Prize. The list of previous winners is a humbling one to join, including Berkeley Haas’ own Ulrike Malmendier, the first woman to receive the prize, who I looked up to tremendously as a student—and I still do,” Maggiori said. “I am very grateful to my Berkeley advisors. They played a crucial role in my academic development, and it is wonderful to have an occasion to say a public ‘thank you.’”
Malmendier was awarded the 2013 prize, given biennially since 2003 to honor the memory of Fischer Black, who developed (with Myron Scholes) the Nobel Prize-winning Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model. Considered the most prestigious honor for young researchers in the field, the prize is awarded for a body of work that “best exemplifies the Fischer Black hallmark of developing original research that is relevant to finance practice.”
As a doctoral student at Haas, Maggiori studied with Prof. Martin Lettau, with whom he co-authored a paper that won the 2013 AQR Insight Award. (Michael Weber, PhD 14, also served as a co-author.) He was chosen in 2012 to participate in the prestigious Review of Economics Studies May Meetings, an honor given to the seven most promising graduating doctoral students in the world to present their research at several European Universities.
“Matteo was a brilliant Ph.D. student and has already made an impact on the profession. He will continue to be a leader in the field for years to come,” said Lettau, who served as one of Maggiori’s advisors along with Prof. Nicolae Gârleanu, Prof. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, and Prof. Emeritus Andrew Rose of Berkeley Haas, along with Prof. Maurice Obstfeld of Berkeley Economics. “We’re proud that he has been recognized with the most prestigious award for young financial economists.”
Maggiori is a recipient of a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2019 Carlo Alberto Medal for the best Italian Economist under the age of 40. He also won the 2017 AQR Young Researcher Award. He previously served as an associate professor of economics at Harvard University and as an assistant professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University.