Milton Harris

Milton Harris studies corporate finance and governance and the economics of contracts, especially corporate financial contracts. In reference to his recent research, Harris said he hopes it "changes the way people think about corporate governance and in particular how they interpret some well-known stylized facts." Harris is a fellow of the Econometric Society and a former president of the Western Finance Association and the Society for Financial Studies.

Harris has held permanent academic appointments at the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and Carnegie Mellon University, and visiting appointments at Stanford University, the University of Haifa in Israel, and Tel Aviv University in Israel. He teaches his students to understand why certain business practices and ways of approaching business problems are optimal, as well as how to apply them.

After graduating from Rice University in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, Harris worked as a mathematician for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory until 1971. In 1973, he earned a master's degree in economics from the University of Chicago and received his PhD in 1974 with a dissertation entitled "Optimal Planning Under Transaction Costs and General Equilibrium." He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1987.

When not working, Harris is an avid skier.

Selected Publications

With Artur Raviv, "A Theory of Board Control and Size," Review of Financial Studies (forthcoming, 2008).

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With Artur Raviv, "Allocation of Decision-Making Authority," Review of Finance (2005).

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With Artur Raviv, "The Capital Budgeting Process, Incentives and Information," Journal of Finance (1996).

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With Artur Raviv, "Differences of Opinion Make a Horse Race," The Review of Financial Studies (1993).

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With Artur Raviv, "Corporate Governance: Voting Rights and Majority Rules," Journal of Financial Economics (1988).

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