Oliver Hart

Oliver Hart is currently the Andrew E. Furer Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1993. (On January 1, 2020, he will become the Geyser University Professor.) Hart works mainly on contract theory, the theory of the firm, corporate finance, and law and economics. His research centers on the roles that ownership structure and contractual arrangements play in the governance and boundaries of corporations. He has published a book (Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure, Oxford University Press, 1995) and numerous journal articles. He has used his theoretical work on firms in two legal cases as a Government Expert (Black and Decker v. U.S.A. and WFC Holdings Corp. (Wells Fargo) v. U.S.A.). He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, the American Finance Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, and has several honorary degrees. He has been President of the American Law and Economics Association and a Vice President of the American Economic Association. In 2016 he was the co-recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel. Photograph by Martha Stewart (© Harvard University)