About

Richard T. Thakor is an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. His office is located at 321 19th Avenue South, 3-255, Minneapolis, MN 55455, and he can be reached by phone at 612-626-7817 or via email at rthakor@umn.edu. His professional webpage, along with links to Google Scholar, SSRN, and LinkedIn, provides additional information about his academic activities and contributions. The available information indicates his role involves teaching and research in the field of finance, although specific details about his research focus, background, or key contributions are not provided in the page text.

Research topics

• Business
• Finance
• Economics
• Industrial organization
• Computer Security
• Microeconomics
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Marketing
• Medicine
• Pharmacology
• Macroeconomics
• Mathematics
• Accounting
• Law

Selected publications

• Principles of Finance

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2025-01-23 · 1 citations

  bookSenior author

  Written for the MBA or undergraduate first course in finance, as well as follow-on courses, this textbook provides a clear, accessible, and thorough explanation of the principles of finance; how they connect to real-world practice and how they are used to solve problems. Structured around ten unifying principles representing the core tenets of the science, this book imparts basic financial concepts irrespective of the institutional framework, ensuring that students learn about finance in a way that is applicable both now and into the future. Pedagogical features include learning objectives and major takeaways, applications in the world of business, numerous worked examples, key equation boxes highlighting the most important financial equations, quick check questions with solutions, key finance terms with a detailed glossary, and more than 380 homework problems. Online resources include a solutions manual, detailed instructor manual to adapt the book to your course, lectures slides and an 800 question test bank for instructors.

  PublisherDOI

• The (going) public option: Equity market financing in the hospital industry

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Appropriated growth

  Journal of Financial Economics · 2025-11-27 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• More investors, more problems? Bond market liberalization and innovation

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Paying off the competition: contracting, market power, and innovation incentives

  European Finance Review · 2025-06-23

  articleSenior author

  Abstract This article explores the relationship between a firm’s legal contracting environment and its innovation incentives. Using granular data from the pharmaceutical industry, we examine a contracting mechanism through which incumbents maintain market power: “pay-for-delay” agreements to delay the market entry of competitors. Exploiting a shock where such contracts become legally tenuous, we find that affected incumbents subsequently increase their innovation activity across a variety of project-level measures. Exploring the nature of this innovation, we also find that it is more “impactful” from a scientific and commercial standpoint. The results provide novel evidence that restricting the contracting space can boost innovation at the firm level. However, at the extensive margin we find a reduction in innovation by new entrants in response to increased competition, suggesting a nuanced effect on aggregate innovation.

  PublisherDOI

• Trust in Lending <br>

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Trust in Lending

  The Review of Economics and Statistics · 2024-09-16 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We develop a theory of trust in lending that distinguishes between reputation and trust. Banks emerge as more trusted lenders than non-banks. We show that trust severs the link between performance and the cost and availability of financing for lenders, but trust can be lost and is difficult to regain. Banks survive an erosion of trust better than non-banks. Banks' trust advantage arises from the lower cost of funding due to insured deposits and an endogenous belief revision channel that complements the effect of the funding cost advantage. The results have novel policy relevance for deposit insurance scope.

  PublisherDOI

• Explore or Exploit? Labor Market Frictions and the Innovation Choice

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Optimal Financing Design for Drug Development Firms

  Research Policy · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Merchants of Death: The Effect of Credit Supply Shocks on Hospital Outcomes

  American Economic Review · 2024-10-30 · 22 citations

  articleSenior author

  This study examines the link between credit supply and hospital health outcomes. We use bank stress tests as exogenous shocks to credit access for hospitals that have lending relationships with tested banks. We find that affected hospitals shift their operations to increase resource utilization following a negative credit shock but reduce the quality of their care to patients across a variety of measures, including a significant increase in risk-adjusted readmission and mortality rates. The results indicate that access to credit can affect the quality of health care hospitals deliver, pointing to important spillover effects of credit market frictions on health outcomes. (JEL G21, G32, I11, I18)

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Andrew W. Lo

  54 shared

• Cyrus Aghamolla

  Rice University

  52 shared

• Pinar Karaca‐Mandic

  University of Minnesota

  39 shared

• Xuelin Li

  39 shared

• Nittai Bergman

  31 shared

• Rajkamal Iyer

  29 shared

• Robert C. Merton

  25 shared

• Tomas Philipson

  University of Maryland, College Park

  10 shared

Education

• PhD Financial Economics, Finance

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  2016

• MS Management Research, Finance

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  2015

• MSc Finance and Economics

  The London School of Economics and Political Science

  2008

• BA Economics, Psychology

  Washington University in Saint Louis

  2007

Awards & honors

• Poets & Quants Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors of 2…