Robert Vishny

Life

• Born: c. 1959 (exact date not widely published) in the United States.
• Education:
• B.A. from the University of Michigan.
• Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1985.
• Career:
• Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
• Director of the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) at Chicago Booth.
• Key contributor to corporate finance, behavioral finance, and privatization research.

People Who Influenced Their Thought

• Andrei Shleifer: Longtime collaborator on finance and governance research.
• Eugene Fama: Influenced Vishny's work on market efficiency at Chicago.
• Rafael La Porta: Co-authored foundational work on law and finance.

Main Ideas and Publications

• Behavioral Finance: Challenged efficient market assumptions, showing limits to arbitrage.
• Corporate Governance: Studied how ownership structures affect firm performance.
• Privatization: Analyzed transition economies with Shleifer.
• The Limits of Arbitrage (1997, with Shleifer): Explained why mispricing can persist.
• The Grabbing Hand (1998, with Shleifer): Examined government corruption.
• Law and Finance (1998, with La Porta, Shleifer, and López-de-Silanes): Seminal law/finance paper.

Controversies

• Russia Advisory Role: Faced scrutiny for privatization consulting (settled 2005).
• Behavioral Finance Models: Some economists questioned empirical robustness.
• Legal Origins Theory: Co-authored work criticized for oversimplifying legal systems.

Key People Influenced by Their Thought

• Luigi Zingales: Extended corporate governance research.
• Robin Greenwood: Built on behavioral finance insights.
• Simeon Djankov: Applied governance research to policy.

Legacy

Robert Vishny advanced finance through pioneering work on market inefficiencies, corporate governance, and the intersection of law and economics.