Prize Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 7, 1990.

Interview with Professor William Sharpe at the 1st Meeting of Laureates in Economic Sciences in Lindau, Germany, September 1-4, 2004. Interviewer is freelance journalist Marika Griehsel.

I was born on June 16, 1934 in Boston, Massachusetts. At that time my parents had completed their undergraduate educations - my father in English literature, my mother in science. My father was then employed at Harvard University, working in the placement office.

Investing for retirement is one of the most consequential yet daunting decisions consumers face. We present a way to both aid and understand consumers as they construct preferences for retirement income. The method enables consumers to build desired probability distributions of wealth...

This paper provides a formal setting for the analysis of the capital adequacy of an institution with deposits insured by a third party. An insured depositor has a claim against the institution and a contingent claim against the insurer. This paper analyzes the effect of the riskiness of the...

This paper considers a world in which pension funds may default, the cost of the associated risk of default is not borne fully by the sponsoring corporation, and there are differential tax effects. The focus is on ways in which the wealth of the shareholders of a corporation sponsoring a pension...

The first part of this paper provides a historical perspective on bank risks. Five-year moving average measures of total risk, market risk, and nonmarket risk are computed for an index of New York banks from 1929-1975 and for an index of outside New York banks from 1950-1976.We use a carefully...