Robert H. Gertner

Robert H. Gertner focuses his research primarily on industrial organization, resource allocation and decision making in organizations, corporate investment, law and economics, and strategic pricing. His research in progress includes a book on strategic investment decisions (for academic and advanced practitioner audiences); the effects of specialization, communication, and incentives on economic decision making in organizations; capital allocation processes in organizations; and organizational decision making under ambiguity. In 1994 Gertner published Game Theory and the Law with colleagues Douglas Baird and Randal Picker, called the "definitive guide to the field" by University of Minnesota Law professor Daniel A. Farber.

Prior to accepting his position at the Chicago Booth, Gertner was a research fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, taught courses as a visiting associate professor of management and strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and worked as a full-time consultant for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).

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He was a visiting scholar at CEPREMAP in Paris and a visiting scholar at both Cornell Law School and the University of Chicago Law School.

His work also has appeared in the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Law and Economics, the Stanford Law Review, and the Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law.

He earned a bachelor's degree summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1981 and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1986.

Selected Publications

With Eric Powers and David Scharfstein, "Learning About Internal Capital Markets From Corporate Spinoffs," Journal of Finance (2002).

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With Robert Stillman, "Vertical Integration and Internet Strategies in the Apparel Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics (2001).

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With Geoffrey Miller, "Settlement Escrows," Journal of Legal Studies (1995).

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With D. Baird and R. Picker, Game Theory and the Law (1994).

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"Game Shows and Economic Behavior: Risk Taking on 'Card Sharks'," Quarterly Journal of Economics (1993).

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