The University of Chicago Magazine
December 1997
It's not every business school that can boast of having had a Nobel laureate on its faculty. Only the GSB can lay claim to five.
The lineup starts with the late George J. Stigler, PhD'38, the Charles R. Walgreen distinguished service professor emeritus, who received the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences in 1982, becoming the first business school professor ever to be so honored. Cited for his "seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets and causes and effects of public regulation," Stigler helped establish and define the Chicago School of Economics.
The GSB had to wait eight years for its next Nobel, awarded in 1990 to Merton H. Miller, the Robert R. McCormick distinguished service professor emeritus of finance; CUNY's Harry M. Markowitz, PhB'47, AM'50, PhD'55; and Stanford's William F. Sharpe. Recognized for his "fundamental contributions to the theory of corporate finance," Miller continues to teach in the GSB.
Ronald H. Coase, who held an appointment in the GSB from 1965 to 1972, pulled a repeat in 1991, taking the Nobel honor thanks to theories of transaction costs and property rights that were judged "among the most dynamic forces behind research in economic science and jurisprudence." His work in law and economics made Coase, a senior fellow in law and economics and the Clifton R. Musser professor emeritus of economics in the Law School, the only member of a law school faculty ever to receive a Nobel Prize.
By 1993, a GSB Nobel was getting to be old hat, as Robert W. Fogel, the Charles R. Walgreen distinguished service professor of American institutions, shared the prize with Douglass C. North of Washington University "for having renewed research in economic history
by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change." Fogel, like Miller, continues to teach in the GSB.
Newly minted laureate Myron S. Scholes, MBA'64, PhD'70 (see "Chicago Journal," p. 8), currently carries the baton. Now emeritus at Stanford, Scholes was on the GSB faculty from 1973 to 1983 and earned his 1997 Nobel, with Robert C. Merton of Harvard, for "developing a pioneering formula for the valuation of stock options."-K.S.
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