2025 Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors: Tyler Muir, UCLA Anderson School of Management

Tyler Muir
UCLA Anderson School of Management

“In January 2025, Muir was awarded the biennial Fischer Black Prize in recognition of his individual financial research. The prestigious award honors the top finance scholar under 40 who best exemplifies namesake Fischer Black’s commitment to rigorous research that significantly influences the practice of finance. Muir’s work in the areas of asset pricing, financial intermediaries and financial crises has made critical advancements in the field.

Muir’s co-authored study on volatility received wide media attention for its findings that, contrary to conventional wisdom and practices, it pays to get out of the stock market in times of turbulence. In volatile times, Muir asserts, investors’ future returns aren’t any higher than they are in normal times. The standard notion that high risk is equated with higher reward turns out not to be true.”  – Carolyn Anderson, editor

Tyler Muir, 39, is an Associate Professor of Finance and the Donnalisa ’86 and Bill Barnum Endowed Term Chair in Management at UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he serves as a Director of the Fink Center for Finance and Investments.

 He also serves as a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Financial Economics.  In 2025, the American Finance Association awarded Muir the Fischer Black Prize, which honors individual and original research and is awarded for a body of work that is relevant to finance practice. In 2019 he received the Eric and Juline Faculty Excellent in Research Award and the Dean George W. Robbins Assistant Professor Teaching Award at UCLA.

His main research interests are at the intersection of asset pricing, financial intermediaries and financial crises. “I’m interested in the role financial institutions play in financial markets and how this may change over time as things like financial regulation change,” he says.

His recent work has focused on how the health of the financial sector affects variation in asset prices. Muir finds that an intermediary-based asset pricing model can help explain returns across assets previously considered anomalies. He has also examined the behavior of asset prices during financial crises using historical data over 150 years and 14 countries, and documented substantial declines in stock and bond prices, even relative to the declines in macroeconomic fundamentals.

Muir’s co-authored study on volatility received media attention for its findings that, contrary to conventional wisdom and practices, it pays to get out of the stock market in times of turbulence. “In these really volatile times, we find that investors’ future returns aren’t actually any higher than they are in normal times,” Muir told CNBC. “Our standard notion that high risk is equated with higher reward doesn’t seem to be true.”

Muir received his Ph.D. in finance from the Kellogg School of Management and his B.A. in mathematics from UC Berkeley. He was awarded the 2019 Dimensional Fund Advisors First Paper Prize and the 2015 Amundi Smith Breeden Distinguished Paper Prize for research published in the Journal of Finance. He joined UCLA Anderson from the faculty of Yale School of Management, where he was an Assistant Professor of Finance from 2013 to 2016. 

He enjoys traveling and outdoor activities, including surfing and snowboarding. 

BACKGROUND

At current institution since what year? 2016

Education: Ph.D. Finance, 2013, Northwestern University; B.A. Mathematics, 2008, University of California, Berkeley

List of MBA courses you currently teach: Foundations of Finance

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when… I learned that I could both teach and pursue my research interests. It seemed like the perfect role. 

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? I’m currently researching the role of central banks (i.e., the Federal Reserve) in influencing long-term interest rates. Central banks have become much more active in this regard over the past 20 years through asset purchase programs such as quantitative easing. This has kept long-term interest rates – Treasury yields, mortgage rates, etc. – relatively low from a historical perspective. Financial markets now bake in that the Fed will intervene in crisis periods to stabilize markets, and this expectation leads to increased demand for financial assets.

I have also been researching how the shift to index funds in the past 50 years has influenced market volatility.

If I weren’t a business school professor… I’d be a stay at home dad. Or, probably more realistically, work on the policy side of economics. 

What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? Some students think that finance is boring and incredibly complicated because of all the jargon. I try to convey that it is incredibly exciting and fun, and that the real challenge is understanding a few deep concepts rather than all the overcomplicated jargon or getting lost in the math. 

One word that describes my first time teaching: Young! I was 27 when I started teaching at Yale. On my first day, I was checking my mailbox when an administrator said, “excuse me, those are for faculty.” 

Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor: The further you progress in your career, the more administrative work you end up taking on. 

Professor I most admire and why: There are so many. Nick Barberis at Yale was a big influence in clear communication in both teaching and research – I shadowed his class the first time I taught and was amazed at how clearly he described important issues in finance in a way students could understand.

TEACHING MBA STUDENTS

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? They’re older than undergrads, so they have more context for what we’re learning in the classroom. They’ve often seen it somewhere in the real world. 

What is most challenging? I teach the first core finance class. Everyone has a different background – some were finance majors and worked in finance, and others haven’t taken a math class since high school. But that part makes it fun, too. 

In one word, describe your favorite type of student: Curious

In one word, describe your least favorite type of student: Apathetic

When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as… (Mostly) fair

LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM

What are your hobbies? Surfing (photos here) 

How will you spend your summer? Spending time with my kids

Favorite place(s) to vacation: Mostly surf or ski destinations: North shore of Oahu, Mentawai Islands in Indonesia, and Jackson Hole

Favorite book(s): I’m currently reading “The Dow Jones Averages 1885-1990.” It’s a real page-turner. I recently read “The Remains of the Day” by Kazuo Ishiguro and loved it.

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much? I really liked the Dune films, particularly the visuals and lack of extensive dialogue. 

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? Alternative. I grew up in the 90s and mainly still listen to the same music I did when I was younger. 

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this… I think we haven’t done a great job of bringing in new ideas into the curriculum in finance. I would say the finance core classes today don’t capture how much the field has changed.

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at… staying focused on their core mission or product without becoming too distracted by the “current thing.” For example, in my view universities try to be too many things at once – we should focus on (1) research/creating knowledge (2) communicating that knowledge to students and the public. 

I’m grateful for… my family, especially my kids Webb (6) and Jackson (3). 

DON’T MISS: THE ENTIRE 2025 ROSTER OF THE WORLD’S BEST 40-UNDER-40 MBA PROFESSORS

 

 

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