Faculty
Robert Pindyck is the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd. Professor in Finance and Economics and a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Pindyck’s most recent research focuses on economic policies related to rare disasters, such as those that would severely affect the entire U.S. or world economies. Examples include possible but low-probability catastrophic outcomes from global warming or nuclear terrorism. At issue is how such low-probability but extreme outcomes should affect current policy, for example, in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. He also has continued to work on irreversible investment decisions, the role of network effects in market structure, and the behavior of commodity prices.
Pindyck is the co-author of Investment Under Uncertainty (Princeton University Press, 1994), which demonstrates that the traditional “net present value” rule for capital investment decisions can lead to wrong answers since it ignores the irreversibility of most investment decisions and the option of delaying an investment. Recently, Pindyck has extended these ideas to the timing and design of environmental policy, as well as to research and development decisions and patent valuation. His work on network effects focuses on market structure in the pharmaceutical and computer industries, while his research on commodity markets examines the random structure of long-term and short-term price evolution and the implications for hedging and investment.
Pindyck holds an SB in electrical engineering and physics, an SM in electrical engineering, and a PhD from MIT.
Featured Publication
"Averting Catastrophes: The Strange Economics of Scylla and Charybdis."Martin, Ian W.R., and Robert S. Pindyck. American Economic Review Vol. 105, No. 10 (2015): 2947-2985. Appendix.
Featured Publication
"The Use and Misuse of Models for Climate Policy."Pindyck, Robert. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy Vol. 11, No. 1 (2017): 100-114.
Pindyck, Robert S. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics Vol. 16, No. 4 (2024): 218-238. SSRN Preprint.
Pindyck, Robert S. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022.
Cohen, Maxime C., Georgia Perakis, Robert S. Pindyck. Management Science Vol. 67, No. 3 (2021): 1608-1621.
Martin, Ian W.R., and Robert S. Pindyck. The Economic Journal Vol. 131, No. 634 (2021): 946-969. Download Preprint.
Despite efforts to reduce emissions worldwide, severe climate change is likely inevitable in the not-too-distant future and we must invest now in strategies and technologies to help us adapt.
From crypto regulation to AI domination to employee empowerment, here are insights that capture all that changed in business and management this year.
"We must be prepared for the worst, and begin to invest now in adaptation."
Profs. Simon Johnson, Christopher Knittel, and Robert S. Pindyck recommend a price cap on Russian seaborne oil deliveries.
Prof. Robert Pindyck's intense passion inspires his students to involve themselves ever more deeply into the material they are studying.
Robert Pindyck ... presented his case for additional research on climate adaptation and the social costs of climate change ...
