Bengt Holmström presents W.P. Carey Lecture

If you attend the W.P. Carey Lecturer Bengt Holmström about “The Promise and Peril of Debt and want to learn more, visit Tutt Library.

Bengt Robert Holmström studied mathematics before focusing in on economics. He is the Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a joint appointment with MIT's Sloan School of Management. (Check out his CV.)

He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society and the American Finance Association, and an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. (Bengt R. Holmstrom - 8 NBER publications or working papers).

In addition to those NBER publications (linked above), check out his work in EconLit, JStor, and Web of Science.

Holmström is a microeconomic theorist, best known for his research on the theory of contracting and incentives especially as applied to the theory of the firm, to corporate governance and to liquidity problems in financial crises. Contacts are important because they protect against uncertainty and contribute to cooperation. In the late 1970s, Holmström looked at how a "principal" such as the owner of a company should formulate an optimal contract for an "agent", the company's CEO would be an example, whose actions the principal/owner cannot monitor completely. His analyses impacts governance and laws for companies and institutions.

With international acclaim, he holds honorary degrees and is the recipient of awards including the Banque de France-TSE Senior Prize in Monetary Economics and Finance in 2012, the MSRI Prize for Innovative Quantitative Applications in 2013, and the Distinguished CES Fellow award. In 2016 he received the Nobel Prize in Economics; read his Nobel Prize Lecture: Pay for Performance and Beyond.

Tuesday night, attend the W.P. Carey Lecture with Bengt Holmström as he presents "The Promise and Peril of Debt - The Information View" at 7:00pm in the Richard F. Celeste Theatre in the Cornerstone Art Center.

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