Featuring Harry Markowitz

Harry M. Markowitz, American finance and economics educator, cowinner (with Merton H. Miller and William F. Sharpe) of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Economics for theories on evaluating stock-market risk and reward and on valuing corporate stocks and bonds.

Markowitz studied at the University of Chicago (Ph.B., 1947; M.A., 1950; Ph.D., 1954) and then was on the research staff of the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California (1952–60, 1961–63), where he met Sharpe. He then held various positions with Consolidated Analysis Centers, Inc. (1963–68), the University of California, Los Angeles (1968–69), Arbitrage Management Company, (1969–72), and IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center (1974–83) before becoming a professor of finance at Baruch College of the City University of New York. In 1994 he became a research professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego.

The research that earned Markowitz the Nobel Prize involved his “portfolio theory,” which sought to prove that a diversified, or “optimal,” portfolio—that is, one that mixes assets so as to maximize return and minimize risk—could be practical. His techniques for measuring the level of risk associated with various assets and his methods for mixing assets became routine investment procedures. He also developed a computer language called Simscript, used to write economic-analysis programs.