Research Expertise: Banking, corporate finance

A leading expert in banking and corporate finance, Professor Robert Marquez tries to uncover the mechanisms that underlie the behavior of financial institutions. One important focus of his research now is the effect low interest rates have on banks and whether they encourage banks to take on more leverage.

A native of Southern California, Marquez earned his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1990, then worked for several years for the Federal Reserve in San Francisco. He headed east for graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1998.

Marquez spent eight years on the faculty of the University of Maryland before accepting a faculty post at Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business. After three years there, he crossed the country again to Boston University, where he was an Professor of finance.

His study, “Lending Booms and Lending Standards,” published in the Journal of Finance, offered an explanation for the sequence of financial liberalization, lending booms and banking crises observed in many emerging markets. It proved to be a telling recipe for financial disaster that could, and did, spread globally, with devastating impacts.

Marquez joined the Graduate School of Management faculty in July 2012.