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October 28, 2011 The Efficient-Market Hypothesis and the Financial Crisis Burton G. Malkiel* Abstract The world-wide financial crisis of 2008-2009 has left in its wake severely damaged economies in the United States and Europe. The crisis has also shaken the foundations of modern-day financial theory, which rested on the proposition that our financial markets were basically efficient. Critics have even suggested that the efficient--market–hypotheses (EMH) was in large part, responsible for the crises. This paper argues that the critics of EMH are using a far too restrictive interpretation of what EMH means. EMH does not imply that asset prices are always “correct.” Prices are always wrong, but no one knows for sure if they are too high or too low. EMH does not imply that bubbles in asset prices are impossible nor does it deny that environmental and behavioral factors cannot have profound influences on required rates of return and risk premiums. At its core, EMH implies that arbitrage opportunities for riskless gains do not exist in an

*Princeton University. I am indebted to Alan Blinder and to the participants in the Russell Sage
Conference on Economic Lessons From the Financial Crisis for extremely helpful comments.

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efficiently functioning market and if they do appear from time to time that they do not persist. The evidence is clear that this version of EMH is strongly supported by the data. EMH can comfortably coexist with behavior finance, and the insights of Hyman Minsky are particularly relevant in eliminating the recent financial crisis. Bubbles, when they do exist are particularly dangerous when they are financed with debt. And the housing bubble and its associated derivative securities left both the consumer and financial sectors dangerously leveraged. Policy makers are unlikely to be able to identify bubbles in advance, but they must be better

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