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Short, accessible insights from UChicago’s leading scholars.

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Latest Insights

Inflation and Treasury Convenience

Treasury convenience yields and inflation were positively correlated during the inflationary 1970s-1980s, but negatively pre-WWII and post-2000. These findings are explained in a model where supply-driven inflation gives rise to a “money channel,” raising the cost of holding money and...

Climate Capitalists

Firms’ perceived cost of green capital has decreased since the rise of sustainable investing. Sustainable investing has surged since 2016, with green firms’ perceived cost of capital on average 1 percentage point lower than brown firms.

Corporate Discount Rates

Changes in perceived cost of capital have minimal impact on discount rates in the short- and medium-term; rather, only over the long term (more than 10 years) do discount rates align with the perceived cost of capital.

Pricing Pollution: Measuring Carbon Externalities for US Corporations

A company’s value includes not just the goods and services it provides but also the societal costs it imposes. In this episode of The Pie, Lubos Pastor, Charles P. McQuaid Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, explores how...

Latest Frontier Research

Sustainable Investing

We review the literature on sustainable investing, focusing on financial effects. First, we examine the effects of investor tastes on portfolio tilts and asset prices in a simple equilibrium setting. We establish novel connections, including a direct relation between the...

Nonpayment and Eviction in the Rental Housing Market

Recent research has documented the prevalence and consequences of evictions in the United States, but our understanding of the drivers of eviction and the scope for policy to reduce evictions remains limited. We use novel lease-level ledger data from high-eviction...

Painful Bargaining: Evidence from Anesthesia Rollups

A rollup is a series of acquisitions through which a financial sponsor consolidates ownership. Increasingly, this strategy is shaping economically important markets, but historically, it has escaped antitrust enforcement. We study this phenomenon in the anesthesia industry, site of the...

Past Events

Dec 6
Academic Conferences·Dec 6, 2024, 12:00 AM·The Gleacher Center, Room 600

2024 BFI International Macro-Finance Conference

by Tarek Hassan, Loukas Karabarbounis, Rohan Kekre, and Matteo Maggiori
Seminar·Dec 6, 2024, 1:30 PM·Harper C05

Fall 2024 Trade and Spatial Afternoons Seminar Series

by Rodrigo Adão, Milena Almagro, Juanma Castro-Vincenzi, and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
Oct 18
Workshops·Oct 18, 2024, 10:30 AM·Saieh Hall for Economics, Rm 021 , 5757 S. University, Chicago, IL, United States, 60637

Development Lunch Workshop – Fall 2024

Topics: Development Economics
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Upcoming Events

Jan 13
Workshops·Jan 13, 2025, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room 3B

Winter 2025 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

Organizers: Leonardo Bursztyn and Alex Imas
Jan 27
Workshops·Jan 27, 2025, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room 3B

Winter 2025 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

Organizers: Leonardo Bursztyn and Alex Imas
Feb 3
Workshops·Feb 3, 2025, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room 3B

Winter 2025 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

Organizers: Leonardo Bursztyn and Alex Imas
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About BFI

About the Becker Friedman Institute

The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community, uniting researchers from the Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the...

Our Legacy

Inspired by our namesakes, Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, who believed that economics research could help improve the world, BFI works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact.

Our Team

University of Chicago faculty members and other accomplished economists set the goals and direction of the Institute.