Merton Miller

Co-authored the Modigliani–Miller theorem, showing that under idealized market conditions a company's value is unaffected by whether it is financed with debt or equity — a counterintuitive result that became foundational to corporate finance by forcing economists to explain why capital structure matters in practice despite it. He shared the 1990 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Harry Markowitz and William F. Sharpe, and spent most of his career at the University of Chicago.