Martin Lettau

Professor | Kruttschnitt Family Chair in Financial Institutions | Distinguished Teaching Fellow | Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES

Contact

Areas of Expertise (4)

Financial Economics

Asset Pricing

Investments

Mutual Funds

Education (3)

Princeton University: PhD, Department of Economics

Princeton University: MA, Department of Economics

University of Karlsruhe (Germany): BSc Equivalent

Links (5)

Honors & Awards (6)

AQR Insight Award

2013

Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, PhD Program

2010

Steven F. Maier Prize for Excellence in Research, New York University

2003 – 2006

Frank Ramsey Prize for the best paper in Macroeconomic Dynamics

2001 – 2004

First Prize – Smith-Breeden Award for the best paper in The Journal of Finance

2001

Nomination – Smith-Breeden Award for the best paper in The Journal of Finance

2001

Positions Held (1)

At Haas since 2008

2009 – present, Kruttschnitt Family Chair in Financial Institutions 2008 – present, Professor of Finance, Haas School of Business 2007 – 2008, Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, Columbia University 2002 – 2008, Assistant Professor, Department of Finance, Stern School of Business, New York University 2003, Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) 1998 – 2002, Senior Economist/Economist, Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of New York 1996, Research Fellow/Affiliate, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) 1994 – 1998, Assistant Professor, Center for Economic Research, Tilburg University

Media Appearances (6)

Will the Real Value Factor Funds Please Stand Up?

Alpha Architect online

2021-02-08

The article summarizes a paper co-authored by Prof. Martin Lettau, the Kruttschnitt Family Chair in Financial Institutions, which analyzed thousands of "value funds"—including mutual funds, ETFs, and hedge funds—to determine whether or not they actually seek to capture the so-called "value factor."

When bosses shared their profits

New York Times online

2020-06-25

In this op-ed, UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich says that a buoyant stock market does not help workers, and discusses research co-authored by Prof. Martin Lettau, the Kruttschnitt Family Chair in Financial Institutions. Lettau found that from 1952 to 1988, economic growth accounted for 92% the rise in stock values, but from 1989 to 2017, economic growth accounted for just 24% of the rise in stock values.

Shareholders Are Hogging Too Much Economic Growth. It Can’t Last.

Barron's online

2019-04-30

The stock market owes the bulk of its return over the past 30 years not to economic growth but to shareholders earning an increasing share of that growth at the expense of workers. That's a conclusion based on research by Prof. Martin Lettau, Kruttschnitt Family Chair in Financial Institutions.

Want to Invest in a True ‘Value’ Fund? Good Luck Finding One

Wall Street Journal

2019-02-23

A new study by UC Berkeley Prof. Martin Lettau suggests that funds may say they invest in value stocks, but often don’t really. Here’s what investors can do.

Stock market’s real driver is not what you think

MarketWatch online

2018-01-03

What makes the stock market move over the long term? While stocks have historically delivered positive returns year-over-year on average, it is not clear why stock prices rise more rapidly in one period than in any other. With my colleagues, Martin Lettau of the U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business and Sydney Ludvigson of New York University, I set out to investigate what makes stocks move over time. What we found was surprising.

Investing in a ‘Winner Takes All’ Economy

The Wall Street Journal online

2017-04-09

Index funds are going to become even harder to beat than they already are. That is because we are increasingly becoming a “winner take all” economy dominated by a relatively few big players.

Selected Papers & Publications (6)

Capital Share Risk and Shareholder Heterogeneity in U.S. Stock Pricing

Journal of Finance

Martin Lettau, Sydney Ludvigson and Sai Ma

2018

ETF 101 for Economist

Journal of Economic Perspectives

Martin Lettau and Ananth Madhavan