Professor | William A. and Betty H. Hasler Chair in New Enterprise Development
Finance | Entrepreneurship & Innovation | Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership | Sustainability

About

Adair Morse is the William A. and Betty H. Hasler Chair in New Enterprise Development and Professor of Finance at the Haas School of Business. She is the Founding Faculty Director of the Sustainable and Impact Finance Initiative, and she is also a fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Business.

From February 2021 through February 2023, Morse served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Capital Access in the Office of Domestic Finance at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Morse’s research spans multiple areas of finance: climate finance and sustainable investing, household finance, discrimination and corruption, venture capital, and pension management. Her work is driven by her interest in leveling economic playing fields. Recent work includes papers on algorithmic discrimination, small business policy during the pandemic, impact and sustainable investment, pension governance, and communication from the Federal Reserve. Her publications appear in the top economics and finance journals, and she has won a number of top finance research prizes, including the Brattle Prize, the Jensen Prize, prizes at the EFA and WFA, the Moskowitz Impact prize, among others.

Many of Morse’s works have been directly implemented into policy, including actions by the U.S. Congress, the State of California, the Greek Parliament, and many state banking regulators. She holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Michigan.

Morse sits on the Governance and Allocation Committee of the California Rebuilding Fund, a public-private partnership of the State of California to provide affordable small business loans. She is also an Expert Panel Member of the Norwegian Ministry of Finance, for oversight of the $1 trillion sovereign fund.

Expertise and Research Interests

  • Household Finance
  • Sustainable and Impact Investing
  • Entrepreneurship and Small Business
  • Pension Asset Management