HEC Montréal pays tribute to Randall Morck’s academic career
August 8, 2023
Randall Morck, Distinguished University Professor at the Alberta School of Business, and holder of the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Distinguished Chair in Finance at the University of Alberta, will receive an honorary doctorate from HEC Montréal.
Since Professor Morck is an esteemed figure in academia, this degree will be conferred upon him jointly by the Université de Montréal and HEC Montréal. The honorary insignia will be presented on August 19, 2023, during the Université de Montréal convocation ceremony for doctoral students, which will be held at the Palais des congrès de Montréal.
The decision to award Professor Morck with this honour was made based on the relevance and current scope of his writings, as well as the School’s strong ties with him.
One of Canada’s foremost financial economists
Randall Morck did his undergraduate and graduate studies in mathematics and economics from Yale University, USA. He earned his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1986.
Besides his positions at the University of Alberta, he serves as a Fellow or Visiting Scholar in governance in several institutions, both in Canada and abroad.
Professor Morck has advised the Canadian and US governments, as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on matters of corporate governance and other economic issues.
To date, he has published over 120 papers in peer-reviewed academic journals. According to Google Scholar, his research has been cited nearly 50,000 times. He is the most cited professor of finance from a Canadian university in the world and the most cited Canadian economist in the fields of economics and finance.
Randall Morck’s work deals with corporate finance themes such as market discipline, insider trading and incentive alignment (agency problem), and how corporate market value is partly determined by these micro- and macroeconomic features. He has included topics like family business and political economy in his corporate governance studies. His multidisciplinary research is relevant for strategy, economics, accounting, finance, and economic history.
Randall Morck has been a regular visitor to HEC Montréal, where he has conducted several research seminars organized by the departments of Finance, Accounting or Management. These well-attended seminars were held until 2014–2015.
HEC Montréal is the first institution to award him an honorary doctorate, in recognition of his outstanding contribution.