Burton Gordon Malkiel (born August 28, 1932) is an American economist, financial executive, and writer most noted for his classic finance book ''

A Random Walk Down Wall Street ''A Random Walk Down Wall Street'', written by Burton Gordon Malkiel, a Princeton University economist, is a book on the subject of stock markets which popularized the random walk hypothesis. Malkiel argues that asset prices typically exhibit ...

'' (first published 1973, in its 13th edition as of 2023). Malkiel is the Chemical Bank chairman's professor of economics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, and is a two-time chairman of the economics department there. He was 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 resea ...

(1975–1977), president of the American Finance Association (1978), and dean of the

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

(1981–1988). He also spent 28 years as a director of the Vanguard Group. He is Chief Investment Officer of software-based financial advisor, Wealthfront Inc. and as a member of the Investment Advisory Board for Rebalance. Malkiel was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 2001. He is a leading proponent of the efficient-market hypothesis, 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, sometimes known as a drunkard's walk, is a stochastic process that describes a path that consists of a succession of random steps on some Space (mathematics), mathematical space. An elementary example of a rand ...

. 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

Life and career

Malkiel was born on August 28, 1932, in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, Massachusetts. In 1949, Malkiel graduated from

Boston Latin School The Boston Latin School is a Magnet school, magnet Latin schools, Latin Grammar schools, grammar State school, state school in Boston, Massachusetts. It has been in continuous operation since it was established on April 23, 1635. It is the old ...

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

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. 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 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 is on the advisory panel of Robert D. Arnott's investment management firm, Research Affiliates. Malkiel's hobbies include casino games and horse race 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), also known as a closed-end mutual fund, is an investment vehicle fund that raises capital by issuing a fixed number of shares at its inception, and then invests that capital in financial assets such as stocks and bonds. ...

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 the Vanguard Group and trustee of Vanguard Mutual funds, yet remains closely affiliated with Vanguard due to Vanguard's similar investment philosophies. In ''

'', 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

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