Financial Markets Efficiency(nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 2013)

Abstract

The paper describes the main contributions of the 2013 Nobel Prize winners in economics E. Fama, R. Shiller and L.-P. Hansen in the analysis of the financial markets efficiency. Discussed are the very idea of the impossibility to systematically gain riskless profits in the short- and long-term perspectives, the fomalizations of this idea in the key asset pricing models, methods of testing these models, and the theory of behavioral finance as one of the explanations of the inefficiency and irrationality of financial markets. A short overview of the research dealing with the efficiency of Russian stock market is also given.