Bengt Holmström

Bengt Holmström is Paul A. Samuelson Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at MIT. In 2016 he received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, jointly with Oliver Hart, for their contributions to contract theory. He is also Senior Fellow at the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute in Florence.

Holmström is a microeconomic theorist, best known for his research on the theory of contracting and incentives, applied to corporate governance, the design of pay and organisations, and liquidity problems in financial crises. He is co-author, with Jean Tirole, of Inside and Outside Liquidity (2011).

Holmström joined MIT in 1994 and headed its Economics Department from 2003 to 2006. Before MIT, he was Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Management at Yale School of Management (1983–1994) and Associate Professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (1979–1983). He served on the board of Nokia Corporation from 1999 to 2012 and was President of the Econometric Society in 2011.

Holmström holds a BSc in Mathematics and Science from the University of Helsinki, an MSc in Operations Research from Stanford University, and a PhD from Stanford Graduate School of Business (1978).