Burton Malkiel

Burton Gordon Malkiel (born August 28, 1932) is an American economist and writer, most famous for his classic finance book A Random Walk Down Wall Street (now in its 9th edition, 2007). He is a leading proponent of the efficient market hypothesis, which contends that prices of publicly traded assets reflect all publicly available information, although he has also pointed out that some markets are evidently inefficient, exhibiting signs of non-random walk. He is a professor of economics at Princeton University, and is a two-time chairman of the economics department there. He served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers (1975-1977), president of the American Finance Association (1978), and dean of the Yale School of Management (1981-1988). He has also written influential articles, including "The Valuation of Closed-End Investment Company Shares," Journal of Finance (1977). This article discussed the puzzle of why closed-end fund companies typically trade at market...