I was born in Timmins, Ontario, Canada on July 1, 1941. My father had ventured to Timmins, a relatively prosperous gold-mining region, to practice dentistry during the depression. My mother and her uncle established a chain of small department stores in and around Timmins. The death of her uncle...

Interview with Myron S. Scholes at the 3rd Meeting in Economic Sciences in Lindau, Germany, 22 August, 2008. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editor-in-Chief of Nobelprize.org.

Prize Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 9, 1997

We present evidence that changes in tax laws passed in the 1980s, culminating with the Tax Reform Act of 1986, had a first order effect on observed merger and acquisition activity in the US. We also present evidence of increased reliance on certain institutional arrangements (unit management...

We explore the degree to which debt financing can reduce the corporate-level tax on income in the U.S.. Although we show that debt is capable of shielding the competitive rate of return on projects from the corporate-level tax, debt financing cannot shield the positive net present value portion...

During the first six months of 1989 U.s. corporations acquired over $19 billion of their own stock to establish employer stock ownership plans (ESOPs). We evaluate the common claims that there exist unique tax and incentive contracting advantages to establishing ESOPs. Our analysis suggests...