Tobias J. Moskowitz, who joined the faculty in 1998, studies asset pricing, portfolio choice, risk sharing, market efficiency, real estate markets and finance, and empirical corporate finance. He has explored topics as diverse as momentum in stock returns, local bias in investment portfolio choice, and the social effects of bank mergers. He also looked at the return to private business ownership, the trading and financing of commercial real estate, and the political economy of financial regulation.
Moskowitz was recognized by the American Finance Association with its 2007 Fischer Black Prize, which honors the top finance scholar under the age of 40. The award cited his "ingenious and careful use of newly available data to address fundamental questions in finance."
His article, "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," written in 1999 with Joshua Coval, won him the 2000 Smith-Breeden Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Finance. More recently, he won the 2004 and 2005 Barclays Global Investors Michael Brennan Award for the best paper published in the Review of Financial Studies for his papers entitled, "Informal Financial Networks: Theory and Evidence," written in 2003 with Mark Garmaise and "Confronting Information Asymmetries: Evidence from Real Estate Markets," written in 2004 with Mark Garmaise. He also won the 2006 Brattle Prize for a distinguished paper published in the Journal of Finance, "Testing Agency Theory with Entrepreneur Effort and Wealth," written in 2005 with Annette Vissing-Jorgensen and Marianne Bitler.
Always trying to bring his professional experiences into the classroom, Moskowitz observes that the gap between theory and practice is not as wide as people think. "It's always interesting to try to understand why," he says, "and I get my students to think about these issues."
Moskowitz serves as a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a current editor of the Review of Financial Studies. His work has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, US News and World Report, Money magazine, and a 2005 speech by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Moskowitz earned a bachelor's degree in industrial management and industrial engineering in 1993 from Purdue University. He went on to earn a master's degree in management from Purdue University the following year, before earning a PhD in finance from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1998.
His interests outside of the classroom include wine, most sports, and South Park.
Selected Publications
With Josh Coval, "The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices," Journal of Political Economy (2001).
With Mark Garmaise, "Informal Financial Networks: Theory and Evidence," Review of Financial Studies (2003).
With Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, "The Returns to Entrepreneurial Investment: A Private Equity Premium Puzzle?," American Economic Review (2002).
With Mark Grinblatt, "Predicting Stock Price Movements from Past Returns: The Role of Consistency and Tax-Loss Selling," Journal of Financial Economics (2004).
With Mark Garmaise, "Bank Mergers and Crime: The Real and Social Effects of Credit Market Competition," Journal of Finance (2006).
