2026 Best 40-Under-40 Business Professors: Arpit Gupta, NYU Stern School of Business

Arpit Gupta
NYU Stern School of Business

“Professor Gupta has had a remarkable impact on students through both teaching and mentorship and is deeply involved with the Chen Institute for Global Real Estate, advising students in the MBA Glucksman Fellows program and supporting the school’s real estate clubs. A defining milestone in his career is the development of an innovative new MBA course on ‘AI in Finance,’ designed to equip finance professionals and managers with the tools needed to effectively use generative AI across financial services, investment management, and financial technology. The course combines lectures, case-based discussions, in-class simulations, and applied projects focused on real-world implementation. To support this rapidly evolving area, Professor Gupta has developed 19 new teaching cases, is writing a textbook on AI in finance, and has made his course notes and materials available to other universities, amplifying the impact of his teaching well beyond his own classroom and helping shape how the next generation of business schools teach AI in finance.” – School nomination

Arpit Gupta, 38, is Associate Professor of Finance at the NYU Stern School of Business, where he teaches “AI in Finance” to MBA students, and is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

His work focuses on the intersection of real estate finance, urban economics, and household finance, with a growing body of work applying large language models (LLMs) and AI-based measurement tools to longstanding questions in housing regulation and urban policy.

His work has been published in leading finance and economics journals such as the American Economic Review and The Journal of Finance and has been covered extensively in outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg, and Financial Times.

Outside the classroom, he serves on New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board and the Model Validation Council for the Federal Reserve Bank. You can follow his work on the Substack Arpitrage.

BACKGROUND

At current institution since what year? 2016

Education: University of Chicago BS, Columbia University PhD

List of MBA/graduate business courses you currently teach: AI in Finance

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when: I realized it was the only job for which “I got obsessed with a dataset and disappeared for six weeks” is considered productivity rather than a performance issue.

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? Right now, I’m obsessed with the question of housing affordability. On the supply side: I use LLM methods to analyze zoning codes at scale to understand how housing regulations have made housing much more expensive. There has been an accretion of many different rules: on minimum lot sizes, process, design requirements, etc. which accumulate and add up to a meaningful deterrent to housing construction. Our work shows that AI methods can accurately measure these regulations, how they have changed over time, and that they are important for costs.

Housing demand also matters. In another line of research, we find that the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policies after 2020 also shifted up housing demand. One thing that really surprised me is how persistent the effects were, even after rates subsequently tightened. Because homeowners are locked into low rates, the tightening cycle doesn’t really impact them, so housing markets remain expensive for new buyers.

If I weren’t a business school professor I’d be … working in public policy in some way. Working in a think tank or other policy role also requires coming up with ideas and pushing to see them implemented in the real world. The difference is that in higher ed we also have this luxury of trying to understand some fundamental things of purely intellectual interest.

What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? I try to create a lot of room for engagement in the classroom. I’ve created a lot of cases, and have recently experimented by creating live-action business simulations which allow students to negotiate and engage with each other in controlled environments.

Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor: The research and teaching get easier over time. The part that stays hard is being a project manager for a rotating group of brilliant but overcommitted co-authors, while trying not to become the bottleneck yourself. Nobody teaches you this, but it’s a steep learning curve and involves a lot of apologies over email.

Professor I most admire and why: I have a lot of admiration for professors who manage to combine doing deep technical work and engage with policy and stay intellectually curious and generous as they get more senior. My former colleague Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh is one example; he’s been a phenomenal collaborator who has shaped my views of both real estate and mentorship.

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? That they push back. MBA students will tell you if your theory doesn’t line up with what they observe in the real world.

What is most challenging? Finding ways to include enough relevant and engaging real- world content so my teaching stays fresh and shapes how people think.

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

LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM

What are your hobbies? Right now I have two young kids, a newborn and a toddler, but I dimly remember traveling, going out to restaurants, and biking around New York.

How will you spend your summer? Chasing my kids around the park, finishing a couple of papers I promised my co-authors, and probably writing a Substack post about something I should not have opinions about.

Favorite place(s) to vacation: I love good food, walkable streets, and cities with a lot of history. The last big trip our family took was to the Baltic countries which was a lot of fun.

Favorite book(s): The Rise and Fall of American Growth by Robert Gordon. I think there are a lot of lessons from this period of explosive economic development.

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much? I think Trading Places was the best movie ever made about finance.

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? I listen to a lot of electronic music, and my friends recently got me into Fred Again. It helps me to keep up my energy whether I’m working out or working late.

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this… I am very excited about the prospect of live-action business simulations to give students more skills in negotiation, judgement, and making real decisions.

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at… Embracing literature. The workflow in many firms is oral: knowledge is hidden in the minds of people. But tapping into new advances like AI is going to require that these processes get written down and made legible.

I’m grateful for… My wife and two kids, who tolerate my 11pm urge to “finish just one more slide for teaching.” My coauthors, who always push me to do better work. And my students, who ask better questions than I did at their age and push me to think harder.

DON’T MISS: THE ENTIRE 2026 ROSTER OF THE WORLD’S BEST 40-UNDER-40 GRADUATE BUSINESS PROFESSORS 

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