Ulrike M. Malmendier (born 1973) is a German economist who is currently a professor of economics and finance at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Her work focuses on behavioral economics, corporate finance, and

law and economics Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the application of microeconomic theory to the analysis of law, which emerged primarily from scholars of the Chicago school of economics. Economic concepts are used to explain the effects of law ...

. In 2013, she was awarded the

Fischer Black Prize Fischer Black Prize is a memorial prize awarded in honor of Fischer Black that rewards individual financial research. The prize was established in 2002 and first awarded in 2003. It is awarded to a financial scientist for a body of work that demonst ...

by the

American Finance Association The American Finance Association (AFA) is an academic organization whose focus is the study and promotion of knowledge of financial economics. It was formed in 1939. Its main publication, the '' Journal of Finance'', was first published in 1946. ...

. IDEAS lists her as among the top 5% most cited economists and as among the top 100 young economists who started publishing 15 years ago. Her work on behavioral biases in financial markets has been featured in publications including

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

, Investors Chronicle,

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

the New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Barron's Barron's or Barrons may refer to: *Barron's Educational Series, a publisher of books, as well as college entrance exam preparation classes and materials, now an imprint of Kaplan Test Prep ** B.E.S. Publishing, the former owner of Barron's * ''Barr ...

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...

, and

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

. She has been profiled in

The American Magazine ''The American Magazine'' was a periodical publication founded in June 1906, a continuation of failed publications purchased a few years earlier from publishing mogul Miriam Leslie. It succeeded ''Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly'' (1876–1904), ' ...

and

The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to re ...

Education

Career

Malmendier was born in 1973 in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

, then in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. After high school, Malmendier trained as a bank clerk, then studied Economics on a Studienstiftung scholarship. She earned a Ph.D. in law from the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

in 2000 and a Ph.D. in business economics from Harvard Business School in 2002; her Harvard doctoral thesis was ''Behavioral approaches to contract theory and corporate finance''. Andrei Shleifer served as Malmendier's adviser at Harvard.RePEc Genealogy Page for Ulrike Malmendier
/ref> She worked as an assistant professor of finance at Stanford University from 2002 to 2006. During that time she held visiting positions at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. Malmendier moved to Berkeley in 2006 where she earned tenure in 2008. She currently is a research associate at the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...

, research affiliate at the

Centre for Economic Policy Research The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) is an independent, non‐partisan, pan‐European non‐profit organisation. Its mission is to enhance the quality of policy decisions through providing policy‐relevant research, based soundly in e ...

, and faculty research fellow at the

Institute for the Study of Labor The IZA - Institute of Labor Economics (german: Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit), until 2016 referred to as the Institute of the Study of Labor (IZA), is a private, independent economic research institute and academic network focused o ...

. She was named Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2010-2012), and she received several Citations of Excellence by Emerald for her research (2009, 2006). In August 2022 Malmendier was appointed by the German government for a five-year term as one of the five economic experts (known as the ''Five Sages'') who make up the

German Council of Economic Experts The German Council of Economic Experts (German: ') is a group of economists set up in 1963 to evaluate economic policies of the German government. In the media, the council is often referred to as the "Five Sages of Economy" (''Fünf Wirtschaftswe ...

. In October 2022 she was a member of a panel which met in Berlin to discuss the reconstruction of

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Work

Malmendier's work focuses on behavioral economics, corporate finance, and law and economics. She has conducted extensive research on CEO overconfidence where she found that overconfident CEOs invested too much money in their companies and pursued destructive acquisitions more frequently than other managers. She has explored how behavioral biases affect financial decision-making in other contexts. Malmendier has found that people who lived through the Great Depression remain more frugal throughout their lives, a majority of people overestimate how often they will visit the gym, and that security analysts distort recommendations for profit. Malmendier has also done research into the origin of shareholder companies. She has examined an early form of shareholder company in ancient Rome called the societas publicanorum.

Honors and awards

In 2013, she won the prestigious

, presented biennially by the

for significant original research in finance. In 2019 she was awarded the Gustav Stolper Prize by the German

Verein für Socialpolitik The Verein für Socialpolitik (), or the German Economic Association, is an important society of economists in the German-speaking area. History The Verein was founded in Eisenach in 1872 as a response to the "social question". Among its founde ...

. In 2021 she was named a

Fellow of the Econometric Society In the scientific discipline of economics, the Econometric Society is a learned society devoted to the advancement of economics by using mathematical and statistical methods. This article is a list of its (current and in memory) fellows. Fellows ...

Personal life

Malmendier is married to fellow Berkeley economics professor Stefano DellaVigna.Sobieralski, Casondra
Economizing Time: Economics Power Couple Ulrike Malmendier and Stefano DellaVigna offer Words of Wisdom on Balancing Career and Family
Institute of Economic and Business Research. Fall 2008. Accessed Aug 11, 2012.

References

External links

at the University of California Berkeley
Ulrike's Malmendier's CV
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malmendier, Ulrike 21st-century American economists American women economists Haas School of Business faculty 1973 births Living people Harvard Business School alumni University of Bonn alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Econometric Society German emigrants to the United States German women economists Writers from Cologne Stanford University Graduate School of Business faculty 21st-century American women