Lars Hansen

Lars Peter Hansen is the David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, Statistics, and the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, a key institution in Business & Economics. He joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1981, serving previously at Carnegie Mellon University after earning his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1978 and his bachelor's degree in mathematics and political science from Utah State University. Hansen has held significant administrative roles, including chairman and director of graduate studies in the Department of Economics, and was the inaugural director of the Becker Friedman Institute until 2017. He currently directs the Macro Finance Research Program and serves as co-principal investigator on the Macro Financial Modeling Project.

Hansen is recognized as a leading expert in economic dynamics, with research spanning time series econometrics, asset pricing, quantitative dynamic equilibrium models, and decision-making under uncertainty and ambiguity. His development of the Generalized Method of Moments framework revolutionized empirical analysis of asset prices and macroeconomic models. This work earned him the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, shared with Eugene Fama and Robert Shiller. Other major awards include the 2010 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance, and Management; the 2008 CME Group-MSRI Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications; the 2006 Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics; and the 1984 Frisch Medal for “Generalized Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models” co-authored with Kenneth J. Singleton. Elected Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1984 and its President in 2007, Hansen is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1999) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993), and a Fellow of the American Finance Association. Notable publications include “Risk, Ambiguity, and Misspecification: Decision Theory, Robust Control, and Statistics” (2023, Journal of Applied Econometrics) with Thomas J. Sargent; “Uncertainty Spillovers for Markets and Policy” (2021, Annual Review of Economics); and “Central Banking Challenges Posed by Uncertain Climate Change and Natural Disasters” (2022, Journal of Monetary Economics). His methodologies continue to shape understanding of risk, financial markets, and policy implications amid uncertainty.