COVER STORY
About the Panelists

Gary S. Becker
Gary S. Becker is University Professor of Economics and Sociology. He received two degrees from Chicago: an A.M. in 1953 and a Ph.D. in 1955. He was an associate professor from 1954 until 1957, when he joined the faculty at Columbia University. In 1970 he returned to the Chicago faculty. In 1992, Becker received the Nobel Prize for extending the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behavior and interaction, including nonmarket behavior. Becker has been a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution since 1990, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1972, and a fellow of the National Association of Business Economists since 1993.

Steven N. Kaplan
Steven N. Kaplan is Neubauer Family Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance and the faculty director of the GSB’s entrepreneurship program. A member of the faculty since 1988, he received the Smith Breeden Prize for the first-prize paper in the Journal of Finance in 1998. Kaplan earned his Ph.D. in business economics from Harvard University. His research and teaching interests include entrepreneurial finance, private equity, and corporate financial management. He has been the top-rated teacher at the GSB in Business Week’s surveys since 1992, and in 1998 he was awarded the GSB’s McKinsey Prize for Teaching Excellence.

Kevin M. Murphy
Kevin M. Murphy is George Pratt Shultz Professor of Business Economics and Industrial Relations. A faculty member since 1983, he received a Ph.D. in economics from Chicago in 1986. His most recent research focuses on returns to education and skill, unemployment, human capital and growth, and income inequality. In 1997, Murphy was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years by the American Economics Association to the most distinguished young econ-omist in the United States. Murphy also has received Sloan Foundation and Earnhart Foundation fellowships. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Edward A. Snyder
Edward A. Snyder is dean and professor of economics. He received two degrees from Chicago: a Ph.D. in economics in 1984 and an M.A. in public policy in 1978. He spent 16 years on the University of Michigan’s business school faculty and served as the senior associate dean with responsibility for faculty matters and professional degree programs. He also was the founding director of the Davidson Institute, which focuses on emerging markets. In 1991–92, Snyder was the John M. Olin Visiting Associate Professor at the GSB’s George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State. He also was an economist with the antitrust division at the U.S. Department of Justice. Before joining the GSB in July 2001, Snyder was dean at the University of Virginia’s Darden School. —M.M.B.