William Christie on the Real-World Consequences of Research

As he was studying the operations of the major financial markets in the mid-1990s, Professor Christie, along with collaborator Paul Schultz, concluded that Nasdaq market makers were implicitly colluding to maintain artificially high trading profits at the expense of investors. The result: The SEC ordered a $1 billion settlement against Nasdaq, while Christie and Schultz won first prize for outstanding papers published in the prestigious Journal of Finance.