Robert J. Shiller Receives Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics 2009

Robert J. Shiller, the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University, has been awarded the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics 2009.

The biennial prize honors an internationally renowned economic researcher whose work has significantly influenced research in financial economics and macroeconomics and has led to fundamental advances in economic theory and practice. It is awarded by the Center for Financial Studies in partnership with Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and is sponsored by the Deutsche Bank Donation Fund.

“Through his innovative work exploring the dynamics of asset prices, Robert Shiller has become a pioneer in the field of financial economics,” said Professor Jan Pieter Krahnen, director of the Center for Financial Studies and chairman of the Deutsche Bank Prize jury. “His findings on the volatility of share prices, the occurrence of price bubbles and resultant crises, as well as on the distribution of macroeconomic risks are not only of great academic importance, they have also broken new ground in economic practice.”

Shiller’s influential work is in the areas of financial markets, financial innovation, behavioral economics, macroeconomics, real estate, statistical methods, and public attitudes, opinions and moral judgments regarding markets.

In his bestselling book “Irrational Exuberance,” an analysis and explication of speculative bubbles, Shiller predicted the peak and collapse of the stock market; the first edition of the book was published in March 2000, the same month the tech stock bubble burst. In the 2005 second edition, Shiller was one of the first to identify a real estate bubble in the U.S. and predicted it would burst and trigger a financial crisis. He explained the origins of the housing and economic crisis and outlined a plan for recovery in “Subprime Solution: How the Global Financial Crisis Happened and What To Do About It” (2008). His new book, “Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism,”co-authored with Nobel Prize winner George Akerlof, will be published in March.

His research has led to the development of financial instruments to hedge against macroeconomic risks. The Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller Home Price Indices, developed with Karl E. Case, measure price fluctuations in major residential real estate markets. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange maintains futures markets based on these indices. He is co-founder of Case Shiller Weiss, Inc., an economic and information firm, and a co-founder of MacroMarkets LLC, which promotes securitization of unusual risk.

At Yale, Shiller is affiliated with the Department of Economics, the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, and the International Center for Finance at the Yale School of Management. He has taught at Yale since 1982.

Shiller is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a former vice president of the American Economic Association and a former president of the Eastern Economic Association. He writes two regular columns, “Economic View” for the New York Times and “Finance in the 21st Century” for Project Syndicate.

The prize will be presented to Professor Shiller at an international academic symposium devoted to his work on September 30, 2009 in Frankfurt. The prize carries an endowment of €50,000 ($64,000).

The past recipients of the award are Eugene Fama of the University of Chicago (2005) and Michael Woodford of Columbia University (2007).