Michel Robe

Michel Robe has held the Patricia A. and George W. Wellde, Jr. Distinguished Chair in Finance at the University of Richmond's Robins School of Business since 2023. Previously, he was the Clearing Corporation Foundation Endowed Professor in Derivatives Trading at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Robe has written numerous articles on the financialization of commodities (who trades what, how, and when – and why it matters), financial market regulation, international financial linkages, and the causes and consequences of economic volatility. He is associate editor of the Journal of Commodity Markets and vice-chair of the Commodity & Energy Markets Association’s executive committee. His work has appeared in top generalist journals such as the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and the International Economic Review; in the top journals on commodities, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and the Energy Journal; and in numerous other academic journals and books. Robe was detailed to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a senior economist in 2006, and continued to advise the CFTC till fall 2025. He has also consulted for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Robe holds a Ph.D. in Financial Economics from Carnegie Mellon University.