Lucian Bebchuk is the William J. Friedman and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance and Director of the Program on Corporate Governance at Harvard Law School. Bebchuk is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and Inaugural Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Network.
Trained in both law and economics, Professor Bebchuk holds an LL.M. and S.J.D. from Harvard Law School and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Harvard Economics Department. His research focuses on corporate governance, law and finance, and law and economics. Upon electing him to membership in 2000, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences cited him as "[o]ne of the nation's leading scholars of law and economics," who "has made major contribution to the study of corporate control, governance, and insolvency." The author of more than one hundred research papers, Bebchuk’s work has appeared in the top academic journals in law, in economics, and in finance. His widely acclaimed book, Pay without Performance: the Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation, co-authored with Jesse Fried, was published in 2004.
Bebchuk has been a frequent contributor to policy-making, practice, and public debate in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. He has appeared in hearings and roundtables before the Senate Finance Committee, the House of Representatives Committee of Financial Services, and the SEC; has advised publicly traded firms, governmental authorities both in and outside the U.S., and law firms; has authored numerous op-ed pieces, including in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Financial Times; and serves on the board of directors of OJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium. He received the International Corporate Governance Network’s Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance, and he was included in the list of "100 most influential players in corporate governance" of Directorship, the "100 most influential people in finance" of Treasury & Risk Management, and the list of top-10 ”governance stars” of Global Proxy Watch.
Bebchuk served as President of the American Law and Economics Association and Chair of the Business Association Section of the American Association of Law Teachers. He is the President Elect of the Western Economics Association International and the founding Director of the SSRN Corporate Governance Network.