About

Max M. Schanzenbach is the Seigle Family Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and his Ph.D. in economics from Yale University. Schanzenbach joined Northwestern as an assistant professor of law in 2003 after completing a clerkship on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals with Judge Alan E. Norris, and was promoted to full professor in 2006. From 2010 to 2013, he served as the Director of the Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth at Northwestern University. In 2015, he was named the Seigle Family Professor of Law. His research, which is in the law-and-economics tradition, uses economic theory and statistical methods to assess the real-world effects of law and legal institutions. His work has spanned fields such as trusts and estates, employee compensation, criminal sentencing, judicial behavior, and tort reform, and has been published in leading law reviews and economics journals.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Economics
• Finance
• Psychology
• Criminology
• Business
• Medicine
• Accounting
• Actuarial science
• Management
• History

Selected publications

• University Trustees Should Say No to Divestment

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Divesting University Endowments

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• PROMISING THE FIRST AMENDMENT: (DE)REGULATING SPEECH IN HIGHER EDUCATION

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Does Discipline Decrease Police Misconduct? Evidence from Chicago Civilian Allegations

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2023 · 15 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Criminology

  Reformers are calling for greater oversight of police behavior, in part through enhanced use of civilian complaints. However, others counter that greater oversight could chill effective policing. We assess police officer response to administrative determinations of misconduct. Using Chicago data, we find strong evidence that a sustained allegation reduces that officer’s future misconduct. We find no evidence that this effect is driven by incapacitation, such as assignment to desk duty, or by officer disengagement. We conclude that our findings are most consistent with improved officer conduct, in part from oversight and officer concerns over promotion, salary, and desirable assignments. (JEL H76, J45, K42, M54)

  PublisherDOI

• What Is the University-Student Contract?

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Policing the Police: Personnel Management and Police Misconduct

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Criminology
  • Political Science
  PublisherDOI

• Does Discipline Decrease Police Misconduct? Evidence from Chicago Civilian Allegations

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01 · 13 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• ESG Investing: Theory, Evidence, and Fiduciary Principles

  2020 · 17 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Actuarial science

  Trustees and other investment fiduciaries of pensions, charities, and personal trusts, and those who advise them, face increasing pressure to rely on ESG factors in the investment management of tens of trillions of dollars of other people’s money. At the same time, however, confusion abounds about the intersection of fiduciary principles and ESG investing. This article cuts through that confusion to provide guidance about when and how ESG investing by trustees and investment fiduciaries is permissible. We make four interrelated points: (1) we provide a clarifying taxonomy on the meaning of ESG investing, differentiating between risk-return ESG (i.e., using ESG factors to improve risk-adjusted returns) and collateral benefits ESG (i.e., using ESG factors for third-party effects); (2) we discuss the subjectivity inherent to identifying and applying ESG factors, which complicates assessment of ESG investing strategies; (3) we summarize the current theory and evidence on whether ESG investing can improve risk-adjusted returns, finding the results to be mixed and contextual; and (4) we show that American trust fiduciary law generally prohibits collateral benefits ESG, but risk-return ESG can be permissible if supported by a reasoned and documented analysis that is updated periodically.

• Comment Letter of Professors Max M. Schanzenbach and Robert H. Sitkoff on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Request for Comment on the Names Rule for Mutual Finds in Light of ESG Investing and Other Market Developments

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Risk Management and the Prudent Investor Rule

  2020-11-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The prudent investor rule, now enacted in every state, is the centerpiece of trust investment law. In accordance with modern portfolio theory, the rule directs a trustee to implement an overall investment strategy having risk and return objectives reasonably suited to the trust. This article, recently published in Trusts & Estates magazine, summarizes the results of an earlier empirical study of the effect of the rule on asset allocation and management of market risk by bank trustees. We had two main findings. First, enactment of the rule was associated with increased stockholdings by bank trustees, but not among banks with average trust account sizes below the 25th percentile, a result that is consistent with sensitivity in asset allocation to trust risk tolerance. Second, enactment of the rule was associated with increased portfolio rebalancing by bank trustees, a result that is consistent with increased management of market risk. Given these findings, we concluded that reallocation toward additional stockholdings after enactment of the rule was correlated with trust risk tolerance and that the increased market risk exposure from those additional stockholdings was more actively managed.

Frequent coauthors

• Ronen Avraham

  The University of Texas at Austin

  29 shared

• Robert H. Sitkoff

  European Corporate Governance Institute

  26 shared

• Leemore Dafny

  19 shared

• Emerson H. Tiller

  6 shared

• Kyle Rozema

  6 shared

• Joshua B. Fischman

  University of Virginia

  5 shared

• Kim Yuracko

  3 shared

• Stephanos Bibas

  3 shared

Labs

• Northwestern Pritzker School of LawPI