LAWRENCE D. W. SCHMIDT

Associate Professor of Finance at the University of California, San Diego
NBER Faculty Research Fellow

Leveraging big data to uncover the critical role of risky human capital for asset markets and the real economy

Primary Research Areas:
Finance, Macro-Labor

Secondary Research Areas:
Applied Econometrics

Lawrence D. W. Schmidt is an Associate Professor of Finance in the Rady School of Management and the Department of Economics at the University of California, San Diego and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Schmidt’s research has developed new insights about the risk exposures and decision-making processes of households, institutional investors, and financial intermediaries, and in doing so has deepened our understanding of asset prices, financial policy, and the workings of the real economy. His research to date involves two interrelated strands. The first and most active strand studies fundamental risk factors impacting the value of human capital and the causes and consequences of imperfect risk-sharing in labor and financial markets. The second strand aims to understand the underlying drivers of financial markets by focusing on the interplay between individual decision-making, strategic complementarities, and information processing frictions.

Schmidt’s research tackles these questions by a combination of quantitative models and empirical work. This work leverages, and often creates, novel microeconomic datasets, advanced econometric methods, and cutting-edge tools for textual analysis. He specializes in working large, administrative datasets capturing detailed, longitudinal information on millions of firms and workers. His work often features quantitative models that help make sense of the data and better understand financial market dynamics, evaluate welfare, and inform better economic policy.

His research has appeared in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, among other outlets, and his research has won multiple awards, including the 2015 AQR Top Finance Graduate Award and the 2024 Dimensional Fund Advisors First Prize Award for the best capital markets paper in the Journal of Finance. Schmidt holds a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and PhD and MA degrees in Economics from the University of California, San Diego. Prior to joining the faculty at UCSD, Schmidt was the Victor J Menezes (1972) Career Development Associate Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management, an Assistant Professor in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, and a senior consultant at Navigant Consulting, Inc.

Leveraging big data to uncover the critical role of risky human capital for asset markets and the real economy

Lawrence D. W. Schmidt is an Associate Professor of Finance in the Rady School of Management and the Department of Economics at the University of California, San Diego and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Schmidt’s research has developed new insights about the risk exposures and decision-making processes of households, institutional investors, and financial intermediaries, and in doing so has deepened our understanding of asset prices, financial policy, and the workings of the real economy. His research to date involves two interrelated strands. The first and most active strand studies fundamental risk factors impacting the value of human capital and the causes and consequences of imperfect risk-sharing in labor and financial markets. The second strand aims to understand the underlying drivers of financial markets by focusing on the interplay between individual decision-making, strategic complementarities, and information processing frictions.

Schmidt’s research tackles these questions by a combination of quantitative models and empirical work. This work leverages, and often creates, novel microeconomic datasets, advanced econometric methods, and cutting-edge tools for textual analysis. He specializes in working large, administrative datasets capturing detailed, longitudinal information on millions of firms and workers. His work often features quantitative models that help make sense of the data and better understand financial market dynamics, evaluate welfare, and inform better economic policy.

His research has appeared in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, and the Review of Financial Studies, among other outlets, and his research has won multiple awards, including the 2015 AQR Top Finance Graduate Award and the 2024 Dimensional Fund Advisors First Prize Award for the best capital markets paper in the Journal of Finance. Schmidt holds a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and PhD and MA degrees in Economics from the University of California, San Diego. Prior to joining the faculty at UCSD, Schmidt was the Victor J Menezes (1972) Career Development Associate Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management, an Assistant Professor in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, and a senior consultant at Navigant Consulting, Inc.