Option Pricing in Theory & Practice: The Nobel Prize Research of Robert C. MertonAbout this Art

The Significance and Consequences of Financial Models


Opening day of trading on the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, April 26, 1973. Courtesy of Chicago Board of Options Exchange, Incorporated.

In addition to being awarded the Nobel Prize, Robert Merton's contributions to financial economics have been celebrated frequently over the past quarter century in both the academic and finance communities. He has received honorary degrees from several universities, both in the United States and abroad, as well as numerous accolades from institutions in the financial world.

Robert Merton's many honors include acknowledgments by the broader and more distant academic and scientific communities. In addition to being a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993. In May 1998 Robert Merton was appointed the first John and Natty McArthur University Professor. First created by the President and Fellows in 1935, the University Professorships, Harvard's most distinguished professorial post, are intended for "individuals of distinction...working on the frontiers of knowledge, and in such a way as to cross conventional boundaries of the specialities."

Merton Speaking The receipt of the Nobel Prize represents both the evolution of an idea and the beginning of endless new avenues for research that have been made possible by the work of Robert Merton, Myron Scholes, and Fischer Black. We join in celebrating the achievements of Robert Merton and the future he has made possible with the combination of theoretical and practical traditions in finance and economics.