Benjamin Hermalin

Benjamin E. Hermalin holds professorships both in the Economics Department and at Berkeley Haas. In the latter, he is the Thomas & Alison Schneider Distinguished Professor of Finance. He received his PhD from MIT in 1988, the same year he joined UC Berkeley as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics and the School of Business. He became a full professor in 1998. From 1999-2006 he was the Willis H. Booth Chair in Banking & Finance. He received the Schwabacher Award for outstanding teaching and research in 1993 and the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award in 1991. From 1999 to 2002, he served as the Berkeley Haas Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Chair of the Faculty. He was the Interim Dean of Berkeley Haas for most of 2002. He served as the Economics Department Chair from 2005 until 2008. He served from 2009 until 2012 (chair, 2011-12) on the campus’s Budget Committee, which reviews all academic personnel matters on the campus, including appointments, tenure, and promotions. He is a former co-editor of the RAND Journal of Economics. In 2014-15, he was the Vice Chair of the Academic Senate and served as Chair from fall 2015 until spring 2016. He is currently the Vice Provost for the Faculty. His areas of research include corporate governance, the study of organizations—especially leadership, industrial organization, and law and economics.

Education

• PhD, Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  
• AB, Summa Cum Laude, Princeton University

Positions Held

• At Haas since 1988
  
• 2016 – present, Vice Provost of Faculty, UC Berkeley
  
• 2006 – present, Thomas & Alison Schneider Distinguished Professorship in Finance 1998 – present, Professor, Haas School of Business
  
• 1998 – present, Professor, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley
  
• 2015 – 2016, Chair of the Academic Senate, UC Berkeley
  
• 2011 – 2012, Chair of the Budget Committee, UC Berkeley
  
• 2010 – 2015, Co-Editor, RAND Journal of Economics
  
• 2005 – 2008, Chair, Department of Economics, UC Berkeley
  
• 2002, Interim Dean, Haas School of Business
  
• 1999 – 2006, Willis H. Booth Professor of Banking and Finance
  
• 1999 – 2002, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Haas School of Business
  
• 1998 – 1999, Professor of Economics, Johnson Graduate School of Management
  
• 1996 – 1998, Harold Furst Associate Professor of Management Philosophy & Values, Haas School of Business
  
• 1994 – 1996, Associate Professor, Haas School of Business
  
• 1988 – 1994, Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business

Current Research and Interests

• Corporate governance
• Executive compensation
• Economics of leadership and organization
• Contract theory
• Competitive strategy and industrial organization

Selected Papers and Publications

• “The Strategic Use of Download Limits by a Monopoly Platform,” with Nicholas Economides. RAND Journal of Economics 46 (2015): 297-327.
• “When Less is More: The Benefits of Limits on Executive Pay,” with Peter Cebon. Review of Financial Studies 28 (2015): 1667-1700.
• “Information Disclosure and Corporate Governance,” with Michael S. Weisbach Journal of Finance 67 (2012): 195-233.
• “The Economics of Network Neutrality,” with Nicholas Economides RAND Journal of Economics 43 (2012): 602-629.
• “Endogenously Chosen Boards of Directors and Their Monitoring of the CEO,” with Michael S. Weisbach. American Economic Review 88 (1998): 96-118.
• “Toward an Economic Theory of Leadership: Leading by Example.” American Economic Review 88 (1998): 1188-1206.
• “Moral Hazard and Verifiability: The Effects of Renegotiation in Agency,” with Michael Katz. Econometrica 59 (1991): 1735-1753.

Honors and Awards

• Phi Beta Kappa, 1984
• NSF Graduate Fellowship, 1984-87
• NSF Grants, 1991-93 & 1997-2000
• Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1991
• Schwabacher Award, 1993
• 2014–2015 Distinguished Service Award from the Division of Social Sciences, 2016