On May 24th, 2017, the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Goethe University Frankfurt has awarded an honorary doctorate to Prof. Olivia S. Mitchell. The outstanding scientist from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is largely renowned for her achievements and expertise in the areas of pension finance, insurance, and financial literacy. “Olivia Mitchell is a leading authority in the areas of old age provision research and pension finance,” the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Prof. Raimond Maurer explains the recognition. “In addition, we would like to acknowledge her exemplary commitment with respect to the exchange of scholars between Goethe University and the University of Pennsylvania.” The exchange program between both institutions has been funded by Bankhaus Metzler since 1992.

Olivia S. Mitchell is International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor, Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, as well as Professor of Insurance and Risk Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Also, she is Executive Director of the Pension Research Council and Director of the Boettner Center on Pensions and Retirement Research. Her professional interests focus on public and private pensions, insurance and risk management, financial literacy, and public finance. Her research explores how systematic longevity risk and financial crises can shape household portfolios and work patterns over the life cycle, the economics and finance of defined contribution pensions, financial literacy and wealth accumulation, and claiming behavior for Social Security benefits.

Mitchell is Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Co-Investigator for the Health & Retirement Study, and Member of the Executive Board of the Retirement Research Center at the University of Michigan. She has published over 220 books and articles that were published in the most respected economics journals. She has received numerous prizes and awards, among others the Fidelity Pyramid Prize for research improving lifelong financial well-being, the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and the Roger F. Murray First Prize from the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance. In 2015, she was named a “Top 10 Women Economist” by the World Economic Forum, and in 2011 the Investment Advisor Magazine named her one of the “25 Most Influential People” and “50 Top Women in Wealth”.

Speech of Olivia S. Mitchell, Ph.D., The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
„Challenges of an Aging World for the Financial Industry and Government Policy“
Website of Olivia Mitchell