Merton Howard Miller, 1923-2000, was an American economist who taught at the London School of Economics, Carnegie Mellon University and lastly, and for most of his career, at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He also worked as public director on the Chicago Board of Trade (1983-1985) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange from 1990 until his death.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize of Economic Sciences in 1990 along with Harry Markowitz and William Sharpe for their work in the financial theory of economics. As stated by the Sveriges Riksbank, which awards the prize, Miller, Sharpe and Markowitz were awarded the prize “for their pioneering work in the theory of financial economics”.
Merton Miller’s largest contribution to the financial field was the Modigliani-Miller theorem, formulated along with Franco Modigliani, and which demonstrates that under certain conditions, a firm´s value will remain unchanged, independently of whether equity or debt financing is used. Miller and Modigliani addressed this topic in his article “The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment”, 1958