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Professor Profiles: Raymond Fisman, Columbia Business School

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when choosing a business school, but the educational experience is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we focus on Raymond Fisman from Columbia Business School (CBS).

Raymond Fisman, Columbia Business SchoolRanked among “The Best 40 B-School Profs Under the Age of 40” by Poets&Quants, Raymond Fisman (“The Private Sector & International Development” and “Managerial Economics”) is best known for taking a somewhat unique behavioral angle to his research, examining what he calls “economic gangsters.” Fisman’s book Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2008) reexamines the term “gangster” alongside the opportunistic context of global economic development. In addition to contributing a monthly column to Slate magazine, Fisman has had his work featured in publications as varied as The New York Times, al Jazeera and Shanghai Daily. Poets & Quants quotes a student from the Class of 2005, who says that Fisman “shows you how economics can be used to parse a wide variety of complex business and public policy issues. He also challenges you to do the best work you have ever done.”

For more information on the defining characteristics of the MBA program at CBS or one of 15 other top business schools, please check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.



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