What I Learned from Steve Ross

Abstract

In this article, a doctoral student of Professor Stephen Ross discusses the reasons he believes are behind Ross’s success advising doctoral students. Ross emphasized the importance of first understanding the financial markets’ equilibrium and then using that insight to research important problems in finance. This technique allowed Ross to quickly see the underlying simplicity of an economic model, something he used very effectively to understand the problems his students were working on. In watching Ross do it, the author explains how his students learned to do so themselves and thereby went on to become successful researchers in their own right.