Short Biography

Bengt Robert Holmström is the Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics and the former Head of the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a joint appointment with MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Professor Holmström, 58, has made seminal contributions to the theory of the firm, particularly in the areas of contracting and incentives, corporate governance, corporate finance and the supply of liquidity, including its implications for asset pricing.

Professor Holmström is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the European Economic Association and the European Corporate Governance Institute and an elected Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Engineering Society, the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters and the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a member of the executive committee of the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). He has held numerous editorial and professional positions and given many named lectures, most recently the Raben lecture (2007) on “Corporate Governance in Context” at the Yale Law School.

Professor Holmström holds a doctorate from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University (1978) and honorary doctorate degrees from the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden, the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Finland and the University of Vaasa, Finland. He has previously been Associate Professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University and the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Management at the School of Management, Yale.

Professor Holmström is a member of the board of directors of Nokia Oyj (telecom), Kuusakoski Oy (recycling) and the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA).