Larry Fisher: our Sherpa into the mountains of data

Abstract

Lawrence Fisher’s vita lists 18 ‘‘Refereed Journal Articles’’ over the period from 1959 to 1992. It also lists five books, eight chapters in books, and, in a rather dramatic understatement, three ‘‘Large Data Bases.’’ But what data bases there are. The CRSP Treasury Securities files and the CRSP monthly Master and Returns files are far more than simple compilations of some security prices. They are the foundation upon which almost 50 years of empirical research in financial economics has been built. Simply put, without Larry Fisher, there may well be no modern finance. This survey discusses the early CRSP papers published in the period from, roughly, 1964–1970. I then turn look at three other papers Larry oeuvre. This is not, and is not meant to be, a comprehensive overview of Larry’s lifetime of work. Rather, it focuses on one, fairly short though important, time in his life as an academic researcher. The dialog at the start of this paper is how Compton told Conant, who was in Washington, the news of Fermi’s success in running a controlled nuclear chain reaction at