About

Edward R. Morrison is the Charles Evans Gerber Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago, a J.D. with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, an M.A. in economics from the University of Chicago, and a B.S. summa cum laude from the University of Utah. Morrison is an expert in corporate finance, corporate restructuring, household finance, consumer bankruptcy, and contract law. He teaches courses in Contracts, Bankruptcy Law, and Corporate Finance, and serves as co-director of Columbia University’s Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy, as well as faculty director of the Law School’s Executive LL.M. Program. Morrison’s scholarship addresses topics such as corporate restructuring, consumer bankruptcy, systemic market risk regulation, and foreclosure and mortgage modification. His research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals and has been cited by the bankruptcy bench and bar. He has received numerous awards, including the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and has served in various professional roles, including as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a former co-editor of prominent law and economics journals, and a member of the Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules. Morrison clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. He joined Columbia Law School in 2002 and has held positions at the University of Chicago Law School.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Finance
• Business
• Economics
• Sociology
• Financial system
• Law
• Virology
• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Demographic economics
• Accounting
• History
• Keynesian economics

Selected publications

• The <i>Journal of Legal Studies</i> at Fifty

  The Journal of Legal Studies · 2022-06-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  A Plea to the Scholars."That article concludes, "There are known aspects of our society which most of us wish to improve, and new and different imperfections will continue to appear.If we seek to correct these various deficiencies without knowing how legal systems work and what effects they actually achieve, we shall achieve improvements only by sheer chance.We shall often embark upon programs to aid paupers that further impoverish them.The law and economics of public policy now poorly serve, but can surely be brought to serve powerfully, our social conscience."Stigler's plea to scholars remains the mission of the JLS today.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The picky men: Men's preference for women's body differed among attractiveness, health, and fertility conditions

  Personality and Individual Differences · 2022-10-15 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Bankruptcy’s Role in the COVID-19 Crisis

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020 · 12 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Financial system
  • Economics
  PublisherDOI

• Race and Bankruptcy: Explaining Racial Disparities in Consumer Bankruptcy

  The Journal of Law and Economics · 2020 · 19 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Business

  African American bankruptcy filers select Chapter 13 far more often than other debtors, who opt instead for Chapter 7, which has higher success rates and lower attorneys’ fees. Prior scholarship blames racial discrimination by attorneys. We propose an alternative explanation: Chapter 13 offers benefits, including retention of cars and driver’s licenses, that are more valuable to African American debtors because of relatively long commutes. We study a 2011 policy change in Chicago, which seized cars and suspended licenses of consumers with large traffic-related debts. The policy produced a large increase in Chapter 13 filings, especially by African Americans. Two mechanisms explain the disparate racial impact: African Americans were more likely to have traffic debts and incurred greater costs from car seizures and license suspension due to relatively long commutes. When we match African Americans to other debtors with similar commutes, we find no racial difference in Chapter 13 filing propensities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Beyond options

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2020-06-26

  book-chapterSenior author

  Describes the debate on Relative Priority and Redemption Option Value as centered on the extent to which bankruptcy reform would protect the non-bankruptcy options of junior stakeholders, or harm the non-bankruptcy options of senior lenders. Argues that this focus on options is misplaced because protecting options is neither necessary nor sufficient for advancing the goal of a well-functioning bankruptcy system. Needed is a regime that cashes out the rights of junior stakeholders with minimal judicial involvement. This chapter also proposes an illustrative automatic bankruptcy procedure that gives senior creditors an option to restructure the firm's debt or sell its assets at any time after a contractual default.

  PublisherDOI

• Restructuring vs. Bankruptcy

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020 · 15 citations

  • Business
  • Accounting
  • Financial system
  PublisherDOI

• Beyond "Unprecedented" Episode 03: A New Chapter for Bankruptcy?

  2020-01-01

  article
  Publisher

• Baird and Jackson's Bankruptcy Cases, Problems, and Materials

  2020

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • History
  • Political Science

  Like the prior edition, this edition retains the casebook's historical attention to the logic and limits of personal and business bankruptcy yet expands the book’s focus to capture the ways that current bankruptcy practice has been fashioned by lawyers and judges. This edition contains a new unit on this summer’s Supreme Court decision in Purdue Pharma, which reshapes the law of third-party releases. Other updates to the book include the addition of the novel LTL Management and National Rifle Association opinions on good-faith filing. Also added is a discussion of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Fulton on the turnover of property as well as discussions of the appellate decisions Weinstein Company on executory contracts, Generation Resources on fraudulent conveyances, and Nuverra on equitable mootness. The new edition of the book will be available for adoption this coming spring semester, while fall adopters of the current edition will be provided with early access to the new Purdue Pharma material as well as edited versions of the LTL and NRA opinions; adopters will be invited to share this advance copy with their students.

  Publisher

• Manipulating Random Assignment: Evidence From Consumer Bankruptcies in the Nation's Largest Cities

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Masthead

  The Journal of Legal Studies · 2018-06-01

  paratextOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Tomasz Piskorski

  Columbia University

  14 shared

• Douglas G. Baird

  14 shared

• Arpit Gupta

  New York University

  12 shared

• Christopher Mayer

  Austrian Institute of Technology

  11 shared

• Kenneth Ayotte

  University of California, Berkeley

  6 shared

• Christopher J. Mayer

  5 shared

• Antoine Uettwiller

  4 shared

• Franklin R. Edwards

  Columbia University

  4 shared

Education

• B.A., Public Policy

  University of Chicago

  1996

• Other

  University of Chicago Law School

  1999

• Ph.D., Public Policy

  University of Chicago

  2002

Awards & honors

• 2018 Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching
• 2025 Best (Empirical) Paper Prize, American Law & Economics…
• 2025 Best Paper Prize, American Law & Economics Review