2011 Fischer Black Prize

Berkeley, CA, January 13, 2011 --(PR.com)-- The American Finance Association is pleased to announce the award of the 2011 Fischer Black Prize to Xavier Gabaix, the Martin J. Gruber Professor of Finance at the New York University Stern School of Business. The Fischer Black Prize is awarded biannually to a financial economist under age 40 for a body of original research that is relevant to finance practice as exemplified by the research of the late Fischer Black, the co-author of the seminal Black-Scholes option pricing model and other highly original contributions. Professor Gabaix has many notable and highly original research contributions on a number of subjects in financial economics, including the level of compensation of corporate executives, and behaviorally influenced decision making and its influence on asset market behavior. In some of his work, he has cleverly exploited axiom-based models of the shapes of the tails of probability distributions. A hallmark of Professor Gabaix's research style is his propensity to take unexpected directions.

The committee charged with this year's selection consisted of Darrell Duffie (Stanford University), Robert McDonald (Northwestern University), Laura Starks (University of Texas), Dimitri Vayanos (London School of Economics), and Luigi Zingales (University of Chicago).

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