Xavier Gabaix

Who is Xavier Gabaix?

Xavier Gabaix is a French economist, currently a Professor of Finance at the New York University Stern School of Business. He has been listed among the top 8 young economists in the world by The Economist.

He was awarded the American Finance Association Fischer Black Prize, 2011. The award is given to a young researcher whose body of work "best exemplifies the Fischer Black hallmark of developing original research that is relevant to finance."

Gabaix has many notable and highly original research contributions on a number of subjects in financial economics, including the level of compensation of corporate executives, and behaviorally influenced decision making and its influence on asset market behaviour. In some of his work, he has cleverly exploited axiom-based models of the shapes of the tails of probability distributions. A hallmark of Professor Gabaix's research style is his propensity to take unexpected directions.

He was the winner of the 2010 Bernacer Prize to the best European economist under 40 working in macro-finance for his original research contributions in financial and behavioral economics, including the consequences of seemingly irrational behavior on asset markets, and his analysis of the level of compensation of corporate executives.