Martin C. Schmalz

Martin Schmalz is a German financial economist. He is the Head of the Finance, Accounting, Management, and Economics Area and Professor of Finance and Economics at the University of Oxford's  Saïd Business School. He is also the Chief Economist and Director of the Office of Economic and Risk Analysis of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Education
Schmalz graduated with a Diplom-Ingenieur in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Stuttgart 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 Princeton University, and was granted a Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson Scholars while pursuing it.

Career
Schmalz served as assistant professor of finance at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business from 2012 to 2018. 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.

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). He succeeded Luigi Zingales in this role, who was the founding director of PCAOB's Center for Economic Analysis since 2013.

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

Teaching
Schmalz is the Academic Director of Oxford's Blockchain Strategy Programme 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. Poets and Quants named him one of the "40 under 40" best business school professors in the world in 2018.

Research
Schmalz is most well known for his research at the intersection of corporate governance, industrial organization, and antitrust economics.

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

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", 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, and has been called an "economic blockbuster" by Harvard Law School Professor Einer Elhauge.

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".

As for awards for his work, the 2017 paper "Housing Collateral and Entrepreneurship", written together with David Sraer and David Thesmar, received the Brattle Group Distinguished Paper Prize.

Arte's documentary on BlackRock also covers the research on antitrust.

As of August 2023, Martin Schmalz is cited over 3300 times according to his Google Scholar page.

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, demonstrating proficiency in aviation operations and safety regulations.