The Pershing Square Foundation awards $17M to Harvard
Harvard University announced today that New York–based The Pershing Square Foundation (PSF), founded by alumni Bill Ackman ’88, M.B.A. ’92, and his wife, Karen Ackman, M.L.A. ’93, has awarded the University $17 million to catalyze the work of its Foundations of Human Behavior Initiative (FHB). Created to yield important discoveries about the basic mechanisms that influence human behavior, FHB will immediately expand with this gift through the establishment of three endowed professorships and a $5 million research venture fund, open to all Harvard faculty, doctoral students, and postdoctoral fellows. FHB’s work will enable researchers to identify cost-effective, scalable solutions to societal challenges in areas ranging from health care and economic development to education and government. The first of the three Pershing Square Professorships has been awarded to Matthew Rabin, a leading scholar in behavioral economics, who will join the Harvard faculty in July. Rabin’s research includes the economics of individual self-control problems,...