Andrei Shleifer

Address:
Littauer M-9
E-Mail: ashleifer@harvard.edu
Tel: 617-495-5046
Fax: 617-496-1708
Office Hours:
By appointment only.

Staff Support:
Lori Reck
Department of Economics
Littauer M-10
E-Mail: llmorris@fas.harvard.edu
Tel: 617-496-2606

Andrei Shleifer is one of the most cited economists in the world, with more than four thousand citations. (Citation rate is one measure of a scientist's impact on thought and practice in a particular field of endeavor.) His work focuses mostly on financial economics, where he has contributed to the field of behavioral finance.

In recent years, his research has focused on the legal origins theory (also sometimes known as law and finance theory), which claims that the legal tradition a country adheres to (such as common law or various types of civil law) is an important determining factor for a country's development, most of all financial development.

Shleifer and his coauthors (Rafael La Porta, Robert W. Vishny, Simeon Djankov and Florencio Lopez de Silanes) have written extensively on corporate governance.

In 1994 Shleifer had with fellow academics — and behavioral finance specialists — Josef Lakonishok and Robert Vishny a Chicago-based money management firm known as LSV Asset Management. As of February 2006 it managed about $50 billion in quantitative value equity portfolios, though, according to the firm's website, Shleifer no longer had an ownership stake.