Martin C. Schmalz

Martin Schmalz is a German financial economist. He is a professor of Finance, Economics, and Real Estate at the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School.^[2]

Martin C. Schmalz
Born	1984 or 1985 (age 40–41)[1]
Nationality	German
Occupation	Economist
Awards	Artur Fischer Preis
Academic background
Education	University of Stuttgart and Princeton University
Academic work
Discipline	Finance, Accounting, Management, and Economics
Institutions	University of Oxford's Saïd Business School

Education

Schmalz graduated with a Diplom-Ingenieur in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Stuttgart^[3] as the valedictorian, winning the Artur Fischer Preis. He received a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, Germany’s most prestigious scholarship foundation. He obtained his PhD in economics from Bendheim Center for Finance^[4] of Princeton University,^[5] and was granted a Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson Scholars while pursuing it.^[6]

Career

Schmalz served as assistant professor of finance at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business from 2012 to 2018.^[7][8] He then joined Oxford's Saïd Business School as associate professor of finance (with tenure) in 2019. He was elected Head of the Finance, Accounting, Management, and Economics Area in 2022.^[9]

In 2023, Schmalz was also named the Chief Economist and Director of the Office of Economic and Risk Analysis (OERA) of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).^[10] He succeeded Luigi Zingales in this role, who was the founding director of PCAOB's Center for Economic Analysis since 2013.^[11] He served there until May of 2025. ^[12]

Additionally, since 2023 he serves as a Director of Global Corporate Governance Colloquia (GCGC).^[13]

Teaching

Schmalz is the Academic Director of Oxford's Blockchain Strategy Programme^[14] and co-director of the AI in Fintech and Open Banking Programme. He co-authored the book The Business of Big Data: How to Create Lasting Value in the Age of AI.^[15] Poets and Quants named him one of the "40 under 40" best business school professors in the world in 2018.^[16]

Research

Schmalz is most well known for his research at the intersection of corporate governance,^[17] industrial organization, and antitrust economics.^[18][19][20]

He has been called to testify to The White House Council of Economic Advisers, FTC Hearings on Common Ownership and Competition,^[21] The U.S. Department of Justice, European Parliament, Australian Parliament, various central banks, and competition authorities worldwide.^[9]

His research covers law, finance, and economics, and focuses on the intersection of asset management, asset pricing, industrial organization, and corporate governance. He co-authored the paper "Anticompetitive Effects of Common Ownership",^[22] which launched a literature on "common ownership" of competitors and, as of 2023, was one of the most cited articles published in the Journal of Finance in the past five years,^[23] and has been called an "economic blockbuster" by Harvard Law School Professor Einer Elhauge.^[24][25]

He also co-authored the Journal of Political Economy article "Common Ownership, Competition, and Top Management Incentives" which proves that benign neglect by shareholders is a sufficient mechanism to explain the results in the empirical literature on "common ownership".^[26]

The 2017 paper "Housing Collateral and Entrepreneurship", written together with David Sraer and David Thesmar, received the Brattle Group Distinguished Paper Prize.^[27]

Arte's documentary on BlackRock also covers the research on antitrust.^[18]

As of May 2025, Martin Schmalz is cited over 4600 times according to his Google Scholar page.^[28]

Fellowships and grants

In 2024, Martin Schmalz was awarded with a €1.7 million HORIZON-ERC research grant by European Research Council. ^{[29] [30]}

In 2021, Schmalz received a $45 000 grant from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth for his project “Welfare Effects of Common Ownership.”^[31]

In 2020, Schmalz received a three-year research grant from the Norwegian Finance Initiative at Norges Bank Investment Management to analyse how changes in ownership, compensation structures, and communication from owners affect management behaviour.^[32]

In 2019, Martin Schmalz was awarded a £40 000 Pemberton grant to support his research on the European private debt market.^[33] The same year, he received two awards from the Oxford Saïd Business School Faculty Research Fund: for his study “Horizon dependent risk aversion, preference reversals and demand for commitment,” and for his research on “Disagreement in Optimal Security Design.”^{[34] [35]}

In 2016, Schmalz was appointed to the NBD Bancorp Assistant Professorship in Business Administration at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.^[36] From 2014 to 2015, he was awarded the NTT Research Fellowship.^[37]

Academic visits

Schmalz was a visiting scholar at the Center for Economic Studies (CES) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 2016, during which time he was affiliated with the University of Michigan.^[38]

Other activities

In addition to his academic career, Martin Schmalz is also a licensed commercial pilot certified by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He holds a license to fly commercial planes and private helicopters,^[39] demonstrating proficiency in aviation operations and safety regulations.

In February of 2020, Martin Schmalz was a guest on Chris Williamson's podcast Modern Wisdom^[40]