Jan Mossin (1936–1987) was a Norwegian economist. Born in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

, he graduated with a siv.øk. degree from the

Norwegian School of Economics The Norwegian School of Economics () or NHH is a business school situated in Bergen, Norway. It was founded in 1936 as Norway's first business school and is the leading teaching and research institution in Norway for the fields of management and ...

(NHH) in 1959. After a couple of years in business, he started his PhD studies in the spring semester of 1962 at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

(at that time the Carnegie Institute of Technology). One of the papers in his doctoral dissertation was a very important contribution (1966) to the

Capital Asset Pricing Model In finance, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a model used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, to make decisions about adding assets to a Diversification (finance), well-diversified Portfolio (f ...

(CAPM). At Carnegie Mellon he was, among others, awarded the Alexander Henderson Award for 1968 for this contribution. If Jan Mossin had lived longer he would most likely have been a candidate for the

Nobel Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...

in 1990 together with Professors William F. Sharpe and

John Lintner John Virgil Lintner Jr. (February 9, 1916 – June 8, 1983) was a professor at the Harvard Business School in the 1960s and one of the co-creators of the capital asset pricing model. For a time, much confusion was created because the various econ ...

. After he had finished his PhD he returned to NHH where he in 1968 was tenured professor. During his time at NHH, Mossin was visiting professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

(1969–1970),

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

(1973–1974),

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

(1976), the

University of Texas, Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 20 ...

(1978–1979) and the University of Washington, Seattle (1983–1984). Mossin was elected fellow of the

Econometric Society The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools in the practice of econometrics. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians o ...

in 1973.

Partial bibliography

Articles

* "Wages, Profits and the Dynamics of Growth", ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'', 80, 1966, pp. 376–399. * "Equilibrium in a Capital Asset Market", ''Econometrica'', 34, 1966, pp. 768–783. * "On a Class of Optimal Stock Depletion Policies", ''Management Science'', 13, 1966, pp. 120–130. * "The Shorter Work Week and the Labor Supply", (with Martin Bronfenbrenner) ''Southern Economic Journal'', 33, 1967, pp. 322–331. * "Optimal Multiperiod Portfolio Policies", ''Journal of Business'', 41, 1968, pp. 215–229. * "Aspects of Rational Insurance Purchasing", ''Journal of Political Economy'', 76, 1968, pp. 553–568. * "Taxation and Risk Taking", ''Economica'', 36, 1968, pp. 74–82. * "Merger Agreements: Some Game-Theoretic Considerations", ''Journal of Business'', 41, 1968, pp. 460–471. * "Security Pricing and Investment Criteria in Competitive Markets", ''American Economic Review'', 59, 1969, pp. 749–756.

Books

* ''Theory of Financial Markets'', 1973, Prentice-Hall, * ''The Economic Efficiency of Financial Markets'', 1977, Lexington Books, Financial economists Academic staff of the Norwegian School of Economics Norwegian School of Economics alumni Fellows of the Econometric Society Norwegian expatriates in the United States 1936 births 1987 deaths Carnegie Mellon University alumni 20th-century Norwegian economists Academics from Oslo {{Norway-economist-stub