| 3.17.2010

Updated 3.3.2014

Best-selling Author Taps Honors Thesis on Meltdown

A Harvard honors thesis on the Wall Street meltdown is a source for an important new book on the subject.

The summa cum laude thesis in economics written by A.K. Barnett-Hart ’09 was a useful source for Michael Lewis's just-published book The Big Short, on the Wall Street meltdown and ensuing recession, according to Peter Lattman's "Deal Journal," a Wall Street Journal blog. Lewis, the author of Liar's Poker, Moneyball, and The Blind Side, lauds Barnett-Hart's thesis, handed in just a year ago, in his acknowledgments section, asserting that it "remains more interesting than any single piece of Wall Street research on the subject." Titled "The Story of the CDO [collateralized debt obligations] Market Meltdown: An Empirical Analysis," Barnett-Hart's thesis also won a Harvard Hoopes Prize for outstanding scholarly work.

Sub topics

Social Sciences

Faculty & Research

You might also like

A computer bank, hovering ove a city, with electric wires coming out from the bottom and attaching themselfs into the city

How AI Energy Demand Costs Consumers

Utilities shift AI infrastructure costs onto consumers.

Nicolo Maestas in a grey suit and wearing glasses sits with her arms on a table

Nicole Maestas

The Harvard health economist not afraid to get in the weeds

A crowd of people shout and march during a nighttime demonstration, while a man and woman in the foreground hold two silver-colored pans above their heads and bang on them with sticks

The Professor Who Quantified Democracy

Erica Chenoweth’s data shows how—and when—authoritarians fall.

Most popular

Gold clock on the top of Massachusetts Hall

Harvard’s Hiring Freeze Continues

University leaders say $1 billion per year is at risk due to federal actions

scissors cutting a paper with Harvard shields on a dotted line

Harvard Layoffs Continue, with More to Come

In the wake of federal government actions, several Harvard schools and institutes are cutting costs.

Jacob Roberts with other colleagues filming with equipment

Five Questions with Jacob Roberts ’19

The actor and filmmaker on creativity, collaboration, and celebrity canines

Explore More From Current Issue

group of people with camera equipment above the fjords in Iceland

Filmmaker John Armstrong’s Adventure Documentaries

Filmmaker John Armstrong’s “outdoor adventures” find the human spirit.

Nicolo Maestas in a grey suit and wearing glasses sits with her arms on a table

John Harvard's Journal

Harvard Economist Nicole Maestas on Aging and Health Policy

The Harvard health economist not afraid to get in the weeds

A six-foot-tall, five-panel folded screen stands in a field of grass next to the woods. It's painted different shades of green, with some squares cut out that represent digital pixels.

Julia Rooney’s Cyanotype Art At Harvard

Julia Rooney’s paintings cross the analog-digital divide.