About

Ulrike Malmendier is the Cora Jane Flood Professor of Finance at Berkeley Haas and a Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley. Her research interests include corporate finance, behavioral economics and finance, economics of organizations, contract theory, law and economics. Her work focuses on the intersection of economics and finance, specifically on how individuals make decisions, the mistakes they make, and the systematic biases influencing their choices. She has conducted research on topics such as CEO overconfidence, the long-term frugality of Depression-era individuals, and decision-making processes behind gym memberships. Malmendier has received numerous awards and honors for her contributions to the field, including the Fisher Black Prize from the American Finance Association in 2013, the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017, and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. She has also been recognized for her teaching excellence with the Distinguished Teaching Award at UC Berkeley in 2015. Malmendier holds a PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University and a PhD in Law from the University of Bonn. She has held academic positions at Stanford University, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and has been a visiting scholar at several prestigious institutions. Her research has been published in leading journals, and she is actively involved in various professional service roles, including editorial positions and memberships in prominent economic associations.

Research topics

• Economics
• Monetary economics
• Political Science
• Law
• Keynesian economics
• Advertising
• Macroeconomics
• Econometrics
• Business

Selected publications

• CEO Stress, Aging, and Death

  The Journal of Finance · 2025-10-07 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT We assess the long‐term effects of managerial stress on aging and mortality. Using a difference‐in‐differences design, we apply neural network–based machine‐learning techniques to CEOs' facial images and show that exposure to industry distress shocks during the Great Recession produces visible signs of aging. We estimate a one‐year increase in “apparent” age. Moreover, using data on CEOs since the mid‐1970s, we estimate a 1.1‐year decrease in life expectancy after an industry distress shock, but a two‐year increase when antitakeover laws insulate CEOs from market discipline. The estimated health costs are significant, both in absolute terms and relative to other health risks.

  PublisherDOI

• Do Behavioral Frictions Prevent Firms from Adopting Profitable Opportunities?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Do Behavioral Frictions Prevent Firms from Adopting Profitable Opportunities?

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-01-01 · 8 citations

  reportOpen access

  Firms frequently fail to adopt profitable business opportunities even when they do not face informational or liquidity constraints. We explore three behavioral frictions that explain inertia among individuals—present bias, limited memory, and distrust—in a managerial setting. In partnership with a FinTech payments company in Mexico, we randomly offer 33, 978 firms the opportunity to pay a lower merchant fee. We vary whether the offer has a deadline, reminder, pre-announced reminder, and the size of the fee reduction. Reminders increase take-up by 15%, suggesting a role of memory. Announced reminders increase take-up by an additional 7%. Survey data reveal the likely mechanism: When the FinTech company follows through with the pre-announced reminder, firms' trust in the offer increases. The deadline does not affect larger firms, implying limited or no present bias, but does increase take-up by 8% for smaller firms. Overall, behavioral frictions contribute significantly to explaining profit-reducing firm behavior.

  PublisherDOI

• Memory of Past Experiences and Economic Decisions

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-07-18 · 15 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In traditional economic models, memories of past experiences affect choices only to the extent that they represent information. This chapter reviews recent advances in economic research that have introduced a role for long-lasting effects of personal past experiences and the memory thereof into economics. It first documents the empirical evidence on long-lasting experience effects in finance and economics. The chapter then discusses the main approaches the literature has taken in incorporating psychological theories of long-lasting memories into economics. These results suggest a role for models of memory in accounting not only for micro-level phenomena but also for anomalies within asset pricing and macroeconomics more broadly.

  PublisherDOI

• ChatGPT and Perception Biases in Investments: An Experimental Study

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 12 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Rent or Buy? Inflation Experiences and Homeownership within and across Countries

  The Journal of Finance · 2024-04-19 · 46 citations

  article1st author

  ABSTRACT We show that past inflation experiences strongly predict homeownership within and across countries. First, we collect novel survey data, which reveal inflation protection to be a key motivation for homeownership, especially after high inflation experiences. Second, using household data from 22 European countries, we find that higher exposure to historical inflation predicts higher homeownership rates. We estimate similar associations among immigrants to the United States who experienced different past inflation in their home countries but face the same U.S. housing market. Consistent with the experience effects model, the relationship is strongest in countries with predominantly fixed‐rate mortgages.

  PublisherDOI

• Scarred Consumption

  American Economic Journal Macroeconomics · 2023-12-29 · 11 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We show that prior lifetime experiences can “scar” consumers. Consumers who have lived through times of unemployment exhibit persistent pessimism about their future financial situation and spend significantly less years later, controlling for income, employment, and other life-cycle consumption factors. Due to their experience-induced frugality, scarred consumers build up more wealth. We use a stochastic life-cycle model to show that financial constraints and traditional models of income and unemployment scarring fail to generate the negative relationship between past experiences and consumption. Instead, the relationship is consistent with experience-based learning. (JEL D12, D15, D91, E21, E24, G51)

  PublisherDOI

• CEO Stress, Aging, and Death

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The US Inflation Reduction Act: How the EU is affected and how it should react

  HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2023-10-17 · 2 citations

  article

  International audience

  Publisher

• What do the data tell us about inflation expectations?

  Elsevier eBooks · 2023-01-01 · 82 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Stefan Nagel

  315 shared

• Michael Weber

  University of Chicago

  89 shared

• Geoffrey A. Tate

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  65 shared

• Francesco D’Acunto

  Georgetown University

  53 shared

• Josh Lerner

  Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

  47 shared

• Stefano DellaVigna

  University of California, Berkeley

  44 shared

• Enrico Moretti

  University of California, Berkeley

  29 shared

• John A. List

  University of Chicago

  23 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Economics

  University of California, Berkeley

  2001

• M.A., Economics

  University of California, Berkeley

  1998

• B.A., Economics

  University of Bonn

  1996

Awards & honors

• Fisher Black Prize from the American Finance Association (20…
• Guggenheim Fellowship (2017)
• Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2017)
• Thomson Reuter Highly Cited Researcher (2016)
• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016)