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Ulrike Malmendier, Ph.D. 

Professor, Finance, UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business

Ulrike Malmendier is the Edward J. and Mollie Arnold Professor of Finance at Berkeley Haas and Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley. Her research interests include corporate finance, behavioral economics/behavioral finance; economics of organizations; contract theory; law and economics; law and finance. Her area of focus is the intersection of economics and finance, and why and how individuals make decision—specifically how individuals make mistakes and systematically biased decisions. Some of her work includes research on CEO overconfidence, the long-term frugality of Depression “babies” and the decision-making behind gym membership.

She received her PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University in 2002, and her PhD in Law (summa cum laude) from the University of Bonn in 2000. She joined Berkeley in 2006 as an Assistant Professor, after having been at Stanford as Assistant Professor of Finance since 2002. She is also a research associate at NBER—Corporate Finance and Labor Economics—and a faculty research fellow at IZA, a CESifo affiliate, and a CEPR research affiliate. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Max-Planck Institute in Bonn, a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Depression Babies: How Experiences Affect Risk-Taking


Recent events have strong effects on individuals’ willingness to take risks, but experiences early in life also have significant influence – even several decades later. This session explores how investors’ lifetime stock-market return experiences can be predictive and useful analysis.

Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020

4:10 –5:00 p.m. EST