The AQR Insight Award recognizes and rewards exceptional academic working papers that offer original, intelligent approaches to practical issues in the investment world. AQR's Insight Award Advisory Committee will consider papers on any investment-related topic as long as they deliver clear, significant insights. The deadline for entries is November 1, 2019 and papers must not be published before that date. Finalists will be invited to present their research at AQR in May and winners will be announced in June.

Up to three papers share a $100,000 annual prize.

The AQR Insight Award counts many esteemed academics among its recipients. The award was founded in 2012 and in that time, 28 of the 35 finalist papers (through 2018) have gone on to be published in the leading academic journals in finance and economics such as the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and American Economic Review.

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2019 First Prize Winner

Can the Market Multiply and Divide? Non-Proportional Thinking in Financial Markets

Kelly Shue, Yale University and NBER; Richard R. Townsend, University of California San Diego

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Distinguished Papers

Disaster on the Horizon: The Price Effect of Sea Level Rise

Asaf Bernstein, University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business; Matthew Gustafson, Pennsylvania State University; Ryan Lewis, University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business

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Shared Analyst Coverage: Unifying Momentum Spillover Effects

Usman Ali, MIG Capital; David Hirshleifer, Merage School of Business, UC Irvine Abstract

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Honorable Mention Papers

Fund Tradeoffs

Lubos Pastor, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, NBER; Robert F. Stambaugh, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, NBER; Lucian A. Taylor, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

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Risk Price Variation: The Missing Half of the Cross-Section of Expected Returns

Andrew Patton, Duke University; Brian Weller, Duke University

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Previous Winners

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  • 2012

Opportunism as a Firm and Managerial Trait: Predicting Insider Trading Profits and Misconduct

David Hirshleifer, University of California Merage School of Business, and Usman Ali

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International Currencies and Capital Allocation

Matteo Maggiori, Harvard University, NBER and CEPR; Brent Neiman, University of Chicago Booth School of Business and NBER; and Jesse Schreger, Columbia University Graduate School of Business and NBER

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Taming the Factor Zoo

Guanhao Feng, City University of Hong Kong, College of Business; Stefano Giglio, Yale School of Management; Dacheng Xiu, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

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Asset Mispricing

Kurt F. Lewis, Federal Reserve Board of Governors; Francis A. Longstaff, UCLA Anderson School; Lubomir Petrasek, Federal Reserve Board of Governors

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A Measure of Risk Appetite for the Macroeconomy

Carolin Pflueger, University of British Columbia; Emil Siriwardane, Harvard Business School; Adi Sunderam, Harvard Business School and NBER

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What is the Expected Return on a Stock?

Ian Martin, Ph.D., London School of Economics and Christian Wagner, Ph.D., Copenhagen Business School

2017 HONORABLE MENTION

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Bear Beta

Zhongjin Lu, Ph.D., University of Georgia Terry College of Business and Scott Murray, Ph.D., Georgia State University J. Mack Robinson College of Business

2017 HONORABLE MENTION

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An Equilibrium Model of Institutional Demand and Asset Prices

Ralph S.J. Koijen, Ph.D., New York University Stern School of Business, CEPR and NBER, and Motohiro Yogo, Ph.D., Princeton University and NBER

2017 HONORABLE MENTION

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Overpriced Winners

Kent Daniel, Ph.D., Columbia Business School and NBER, Alexander Klos, Ph.D., Kiel University and Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Simon Rottke, Ph.D., FCM, University of Munster

2017 HONORABLE MENTION

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Deviations from Covered Interest Rate Parity

Wenxin Du, Ph.D., Federal Reserve Board; Alexander Tepper, Ph.D., Columbia University; and Adrien Verdelhan, Ph.D., MIT Sloan School of Management

2017 FIRST PRIZE

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