Myron S Scholes

Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus

Academic Areas: Finance

Myron Scholes’ research has focused on understanding uncertainty and its effect on asset prices and the value of options, including flexibility options. He has studied the effects of tax policy on asset prices and incentives. He studied the effects of the taxation of dividends on the prices of securities, the interaction of incentives and taxes in executive compensation, capital structure issues with taxation, and the effects of taxes on the optimal liquidation of assets. He wrote several articles on investment banking and incentives and developed a new theory of tax planning under uncertainty and information asymmetry which led to a book with Mark A. Wolfson called Taxes and Business Strategies: A Planning Approach (Prentice Hall, 1991).

Bio

Myron Scholes is the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, and co-originator of the Black-Scholes options pricing model. Scholes was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his new method of determining the value of derivatives. Scholes is currently the Chairman of the Board of Economic Advisers of Stamos Partners. Previously he served as the Chairman of Platinum Grove Asset Management and on the Dimensional Fund Advisors Board of Directors, American Century Mutual Fund Board of Directors and the Cutwater Advisory Board. He was a principal and Limited Partner at Long-Term Capital Management, L.P. and a Managing Director at Salomon Brothers. Other positions Scholes held include the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Director of the Center for Research in Security Prices, and Professor of Finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Scholes earned his PhD at the University of Chicago.

Academic Degrees

PhD, University of Chicago, 1969, MBA, 1964; BA, McMaster University (Ontario), 1961.

Professional Experience

At Stanford since 1983. Emeritus since 1996.

Associate Professor, University of Chicago, 1973-83; Associate Professor, M.I.T., 1968-73.

Selected Publications

  • The Economics of Hedging and Spreading in Futures Markets: Journal of Futures Research, July, 1981
  • Executive Compensation, Taxes, and Incentives: Financial Economics: Essays in Honor of Paul Cootner, Prentice Hall, 1981
  • Optimal Liquidation of Assets in the Presence of Personal Taxes: Implications for Asset Pricing: Journal of Finance, May, 1980
  • Dividends and Taxes: Journal of Financial Economics, Dec., 1978
  • The Effects of Dividend Yield and Dividend Policy on Common Stock Prices and Returns: Journal of Financial Economics, May, 1974

Working Papers

  • 873: Taxation and the Dynamics of Corporate Control: The Uncertain Case for Tax Motivated Acquisitions

Awards and Honors

  • Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, 1997, The Nobel Foundation

Affiliations

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