March 17, 2010

Honors thesis plumbs 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.

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