Burton Gordon Malkiel (born August 28, 1932) is an American economist and writer most noted for his classic finance book '' A Random Walk Down Wall Street'' (first published 1973, in its 12th edition as of 2019). He is a leading proponent of the

efficient-market hypothesis The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted bas ...

, which contends that prices of publicly traded assets reflect all publicly available information, although he has also pointed out that some markets are evidently inefficient, exhibiting signs of non-

random walk In mathematics, a random walk is a random process that describes a path that consists of a succession of random steps on some mathematical space. An elementary example of a random walk is the random walk on the integer number line \mathbb Z ...

. Malkiel is the Chemical Bank chairman's professor of economics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, and is a two-time chairman of the economics department there. He served as a member of the

Council of Economic Advisers The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the President of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical rese ...

(1975–1977), president of the

American Finance Association The American Finance Association (AFA) is an academic organization whose focus is the study and promotion of knowledge of financial economics. It was formed in 1939. Its main publication, the '' Journal of Finance'', was first published in 1946. ...

(1978), and dean of the

Yale School of Management The Yale School of Management (also known as Yale SOM) is the graduate business school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. The school awards the Master of Business Administration (MBA), MBA for Executive ...

(1981–1988). He also spent 28 years as a director of

the Vanguard Group The Vanguard Group, Inc. is an American registered investment advisor based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with about $7 trillion in global assets under management, as of January 13, 2021. It is the largest provider of mutual funds and the second-l ...

. He currently serves as Chief Investment Officer to software-based financial advisor, Wealthfront Inc. and as a member of the Investment Advisory Board fo
Rebalance
Malkiel in general supports buying and holding index funds as the most effective portfolio-management strategy, but does think it is viable to actively manage "around the edges" of such a portfolio, as financial markets are not totally efficient. In a 2020 interview, Malkiel also stated he was not opposed in principle to investing or trading in single stocks (as exemplified by the popularity of Robinhood), provided the large majority of one's portfolio is index funds.Burton Malkiel: 'I Am Not a Big Fan of ESG Investing'
Morningstar: The Long View, 2020-08-05; accessed 2020-08-06 Malkiel was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 2001.

Life and career

In 1949, Malkiel graduated from

Boston Latin School The Boston Latin School is a public exam school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was established on April 23, 1635, making it both the oldest public school in the British America and the oldest existing school in the United States. Its curriculum f ...

, and went on to receive his bachelor's degree (1953) and his MBA (1955) from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

. He originally went into the business world, but had always had an interest in academic economics and eventually earned his Ph.D. in economics from

in 1964 after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Problems in the Structure of Financial Markets." He married his first wife, Judith Atherton Malkiel, in 1954; they had one son, Jonathan. After Judith Malkiel's death in 1987, Burton Malkiel married his second wife, Nancy Weiss, in 1988. (

Nancy Weiss Malkiel Nancy Joan Weiss Malkiel (born 1944) is an American historian. She became the first woman to join Princeton University's Department of History and served as Princeton's Dean of the college for 24 years. Weiss Malkiel holds the title of Professor ...

was Dean of the College of Princeton University from 1987 to 2011.) He served as a first lieutenant in the United States Army from 1955 to 1958. Malkiel serves on the advisory panel of Robert D. Arnott's investment management firm, Research Affiliates. Malkiel's hobbies include

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s and

horse race Horse racing is an equestrianism, equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, ...

betting, to which he applies mathematical and statistical analysis.

Notable works

In addition to several books, he has also written influential articles, including "The Valuation of Closed-End Investment Company Shares," ''Journal of Finance'' (1977). This article discussed the puzzle of why

closed-end fund A closed-end fund (CEF) is a fund that raises capital by issuing a fixed number of shares which are not redeemable, and then invest that capital in financial assets such as stocks and bonds. Unlike open-end funds, new shares in a closed-end fund ...

companies typically trade at market valuations lower than the net value of their assets. If net asset value and market capitalization are only two ways of measuring the same thing, then why is there a consistent difference between them? On July 22, 2005, Malkiel retired from 28 years of service as a director of

and trustee of Vanguard Mutual funds, yet remains closely affiliated with Vanguard due to Vanguard's similar investment philosophies. In '' A Random Walk Down Wall Street'', he frequently references Vanguard. Malkiel is also the Chief Investment Officer of Wealthfront, an automated investment and savings service founded in 2008 currently with $10 billion under management.

Partial bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Burton G. Malkiel: ''A Random Walk Down Wall Street. The Best Investment Tactic for the New Century'', Norton & Company, New York 2011

References

Citations

Sources

* "Malkiel, Burton Gordon". ''

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