Michael Jensen receives AFA award

Michael C. Jensen, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard Business School (HBS), has received the 2009 Morgan Stanley-American Finance Association (AFA) Award for Excellence in Financial Economics.

Jeremy Stein, the Moise Y. Safra Professor of Economics, who chaired the AFA selection committee, said Jensen’s “research on agency theory, organizational design, and incentives has helped to define the modern paradigm for how both academics and practitioners think about many of the most fundamental issues in corporate finance, corporate governance, and law and economics, to name just a few of the fields that have been shaped by his thinking.”

Jensen is the author or co-author of more than 100 scientific papers, along with numerous articles, comments, and editorials published in the media on a wide range of economic, finance, and business-related topics.  He has also authored, co-authored, or edited five books, including “Theory of the Firm: Governance, Residual Claims, and Organizational Forms” (2000), “Foundations of Organizational Strategy” (1998), and “The Modern Theory of Corporate Finance” (1984).

Jensen co-founded the Journal of Financial Economics in 1973, and served as managing editor from 1987 to 1997, when he became founding editor. In 1994 he co-founded Social Science Electronic Publishing Inc., which is devoted to the electronic publication of scientific working papers in the social sciences. He is currently chairman.

Jensen was an active faculty member at HBS from 1985 until 2000.