Harry M. Markowitz
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Harry M. Markowitz
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1990
Born: 24 August 1927, Chicago, IL, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
Prize motivation: “for their pioneering work in the theory of financial economics”
Prize share: 1/3
Life
Harry Markowitz was born in Chicago, USA. He studied at the University of Chicago, completing his M.A. in 1950. While still a student, he became a member of the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. In 1954, he received his Ph.D. for his work on portfolio selection, a novel field in economics.
Work
The contribution for which Harry Markowitz received the Economic Sciences Prize was first published in the essay Portfolio Selection (1952), and later in his book Portfolio Selection: Efficient Diversification (1959). The theory of portfolio selection was originally normative for investment managers, i.e., a theory for optimal investment of wealth in assets which differ in regard to their expected return and risk. His theory evolved into a foundation for further research in financial economics.
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