Xavier Gabaix (born August 1971) is a French economist, currently the Pershing Square Professor of Economics and Finance at Harvard University.
He has been listed among the top 8 young economists in the world by The Economist.
He holds a B.A.
in Mathematics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, as well as a Ph.D.
in Economics from Harvard University.
Gabaix mostly researches asset pricing, behavioral economics, and macroeconomics.
He has many notable and highly original research contributions on a number of subjects in financial economics, including the level of compensation of corporate executives, and behaviorally influenced decision making and its influence on asset market behaviour.
In some of his work, he has made use of axiom-based models of the shapes of the tails of probability distributions.
A hallmark of Professor Gabaix's research style is his propensity to take unexpected directions.
He previously held a position as Associate Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.