William F. Sharp

William Forsyth Sharpe, popularly known, as William F. Sharpe is an American economist who received the Nobel Prize in economics for along with other two economists for their work, which established the financial economics as a separate branch in the field of economics. [br]

Life and Works of Sharpe

William Forsyth Sharpe, popularly known, as William F. Sharpe is an American economist who received the Nobel Prize in economics for along with other two economists for their work, which established the financial economics as a separate branch in the field of economics. [br]

Life and Works of Sharpe

William Sharpe was born on 16th June 1934 in Massachusetts, US. Sharpe received his PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1961 in economics. He met Markowitz at the RAND Corporation while he was working at the corporation and was heavily influenced by him. Sharpe took to teaching economics at the University of Washington later during 1961-68. He was also a professor at the University of Stanford till 1970. Sharpe quit the job of teaching after a while and went to head his own investment consulting firm.

Sharpe is the father of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. He also developed the Sharpe Ratio for Investment Performance Analysis. He was also instrumental in generating the binominal method for the valuation of options, the gradient method for the optimization of asset allocation. He has also fathered the returns-based process of analysis for assessing the style and performance of investment funds.

Presently he is the retired professor of Finance, at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Before this association he served as the President of the American Finance Association. He happens to be a trustee of the Economists for Peace and Security. Sharpe is the co-founder of the Financial Engines. The firm offers advices on investment management and also advices individuals in selecting their retirement plan. He is one of the Board members of the firm. [br]

Sharpe’s articles have been published in various journals. They are Management Science, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Business, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Portfolio Management.

Awards Received by Sharpe Apart from the Nobel Prize he had also received Doctor oh Human Letters, Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Alicante, Honoris Causa from De Paul University, Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Vienna and the UCLA’s medal which is the highest honor from UCLA.

Major Works of Sharpe
He has written several books through out his life. Some of them are:

• Portfolio Theory and Capital Markets
• Fundamentals of Investment
• Asset Allocation Tools
• Investments
• Investors and Markets: Portfolio Choices, Asset Prices and Investment Advice