Background
Merton Miller was born on May 16, 1923, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was a son of Sylvia Miller, a housewife, and Joel Miller, an attorney.
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
Miller attended Harvard University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1944.
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, United States
In 1952, Miller graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
Miller was awarded with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1990.
(A rare opportunity to go one-on-one with an industry gian...)
A rare opportunity to go one-on-one with an industry giant and one of today's most respected financial thinkers, "Merton Miller on Derivatives" is a refreshingly accessible overview of derivatives, the revolution they have wrought and the disasters they've supposedly caused.
https://www.amazon.com/Merton-Miller-Derivatives-H/dp/0471183407
1991
(In this book, Nobel Laureate Merton Miller presents a sus...)
In this book, Nobel Laureate Merton Miller presents a sustained attack on the popular view, that modern financial innovations have created excessive market volatility to the detriment of individual savers and business investors, and that regulation is essential in such forms as higher margin requirements, taxes on trading and perhaps even closing down the future market.
https://www.amazon.com/Financial-Innovations-Market-Volatility-Merton/dp/1557862524
1991
economist educator theorist author
Merton Miller was born on May 16, 1923, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was a son of Sylvia Miller, a housewife, and Joel Miller, an attorney.
Miller attended Harvard University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1944. Later, in 1952, he graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
In 1944-1949, Merton held the post of an economist in the division of tax research of the United States Department of the Treasury. After receiving his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1952, he was appointed a visiting assistant lecturer at the London School of Economics, where he served till 1953. Then, the same year, in 1953, Miller went to teach at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (present-day Carnegie Mellon University), where, in 1958, he, together with Franco Modigliani, worked on the paper "The Cost of Capital, Corporate Finance and the Theory of Investment". Also, it was with Modigliani, that Merton developed the Modigliani-Miller theorem of corporate finance. The theorem explains the relationship between a company's capital asset structure and dividend policy and its market value and cost of capital. It also demonstrates, that how a manufacturing company funds its activities is less important, than the profitability of those activities.
It was in 1961, that Miller left the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the same year accepted a position as a professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, remaining in the position until 1999.
Besides, from 1983 to 1985, Miller held the post of a public director on the Chicago Board of Trade. From 1990 until his death in 2000, he held the same post on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
It's worth mentioning, that, during his career, Miller penned and co-authored several books, including "The Theory of Finance" (1972), "Macroeconomics: A Neoclassical Introduction" (1974), "Merton Miller on Derivatives" (1991) and "Financial Innovations and Market Volatility" (1991), among others.
(In this book, Nobel Laureate Merton Miller presents a sus...)
1991(A rare opportunity to go one-on-one with an industry gian...)
1991As for the Miller-Modigliani theory, it held what has become the most basic tenet of corporate financing: the value of a company is determined by its investment decisions and not by its financing choices. However, before the theory was developed, it was generally assumed, that companies could raise capital cheaply by borrowing or raise it safely by issuing more stock.
It's also worth mentioning, that Merton's theory was based on the notion, that, while more corporate debt might make profits vary from year to year, the extra risk should not affect a stock's price because conservative investors could always "deleverage" their assets by holding more of a low-risk asset, like a bank deposit.
Also, Miller was a strong defender of the view, that futures contracts, just like other products, are valuable to those, who buy them. Therefore, he argued, government regulation of these contracts is likely to do more harm, than good.
Besides, throughout his life, Miller believed fervently in the power of free markets, unhindered by government - an unusual stance for economists in his generation.
Quotations:
"To beat the market you'll have to invest serious bucks to dig up information no one else has yet."
"What counts is what you do with your money, not where it came from."
"Diversification is your buddy."
"If there are 10,000 people, looking at the stocks and trying to pick winners, one in 10,000 is going to score, by chance alone, a great coup, and that's all that's going on. It's a game, it's a chance operation, and people think they are doing something purposeful... but they're really not."
"You only need to make one big score in finance to be a hero forever."
"Most people might just as well buy a share of the whole market, which pools all the information, than delude themselves into thinking they know something the market doesn't."
"I favour passive investing for most investors, because markets are amazingly successful devices for incorporating information into stock prices."
Merton was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Economic Association.
Econometric Society , United States
1975
American Finance Association , United States
1976
Physical Characteristics: Merton suffered from lymphoma.
Quotes from others about the person
"Mr. Miller was the founder of modern finance and the person, who fathered the discipline from an institutional field of study to one, that is truly a legitimate and well-accepted part of economics and business." - Robert Hamada, the former Edward Eagle Brown Distinguished Service Professor of Finance and former Dean of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
brush-cutting and gardening
Initially, Merton was married to Eleanor Miller, who passed away in 1969 and whose death was a heavy personal blow for Miller. Their marriage produced several children, including Pamela, Margot and Louise. Later, Miller married his second wife, Katherine Miller.
Doctor
Professor