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Louis Bachelier, 1870-1946
The tragic hero of financial economics was the unfortunate Louis Bachelier. In his 1900 dissertation written in Paris, Theorie de la Spéculation (and in his subsequent work, esp. 1906, 1913), he anticipated much of what was to become standard fare in financial theory: random walk of financial market prices, Brownian motion and martingales (note: all before both Einstein and Wiener!) His innovativeness, however, was not appreciated by his professors or contemporaries. His dissertation received poor marks from his teachers. Blackballed, Bachelier quickly dropped into the shadows of the academic underground. After a series of minor posts, he ended up obscurely teaching in Besançon for much of the rest of his life. Virtually nothing else is known of this pioneer - his work being largely ignored until the 1960s.
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Major Works of Louis Bachelier
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All rights reserved, Gonçalo L. Fonseca