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A customized search program helped low-income families find and move to good neighborhoods to raise their children.
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Christopher J. Palmer
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Christopher Palmer is the Albert and Jeanne Clear Career Development Professor and an Assistant Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management where he teaches corporate finance. His research focuses on how credit, real estate, and labor markets respond to periods of significant upheaval.
Palmer is also a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an Affiliate with the Jameel Poverty Action Lab. He previously taught real estate finance at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and was a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Prior to graduate school, he consulted with Compass-Lexecon.
Palmer holds a BA in economics and mathematics from Brigham Young University and a PhD in economics from MIT.
Current Research Focus: Palmer's research focuses on how credit, real estate, and labor markets respond to periods of significant upheaval. His current research projects include studying the consequences of how consumers shop for credit, how households strategically use bankruptcy laws, how to improve federal housing entitlements, the effectiveness of disclosure laws, and how people form expectations about future house prices.
Honors🔗
NBER appoints Palmer as a Faculty Research Fellow
Publications🔗
"Monthly Payment Targeting and the Demand for Maturity."
Argyle, Bronson, Christopher John Palmer, and Taylor Nadauld (NBER Working Paper No. 25668). Review of Financial Studies. Forthcoming. Slides. MIT News.
"Testing the Effectiveness of Consumer Financial Disclosure: Experimental Evidence from Savings Accounts."
Palmer, Christopher John, Paul Adams, Redis Zaliauskas, and Stefan Hunt (NBER Working Paper No. 25718). Journal of Financial Economics. Forthcoming. Slides. MarketWatch. The Economist.
"The Capitalization of Consumer Financing into Durable Goods Prices."
Argyle, Bronson, Taylor Nadauld, Christopher John Palmer, and Ryan Pratt (NBER Working Paper No. 24699). Journal of Finance. Forthcoming. Slides. NBER Digest. SFS Cavalcade 2019 Best Paper in Corporate Finance.
"Running Up the Tab: Personal Bankruptcy, Moral Hazard, and Shadow Debt."
Argyle, Bronson, Benjamin Iverson, Taylor Nadauld, and Christopher John Palmer, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6150-20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, July 2020.
"How Quantitative Easing Works: Evidence on the Refinancing Channel."
Di Maggio, Marco, Amir Kermani, and Christopher John Palmer. Review of Economic Studies Vol. 87, No. 3 (2020): 1498-1528. Pre-publication Version. Appendix. Data and Code. Slides. VoxEU. Forbes. NBER Digest. MIT News.
"Creating Moves to Opportunity: Experimental Evidence on Barriers to Neighborhood Choice."
Bergman, Peter, Raj Chetty, Stefanie DeLuca, Nathaniel Hendren, Lawrence F. Katz, and Christopher John Palmer (NBER Working Paper No. 26164), Working Paper. 2019. Non-technical summary. Slides. NY Times. City Lab. Vox. NPR. The Hill.
Recent Insights🔗
Press
Reducing segregation and increasing upward mobility in American cities
MIT Sloan School Professor Christopher Palmer partners with Seattle and King County Public Housing Authorities to pilot mobility program addressing the fading American Dream
Aug 4, 2019
Media Highlights🔗
Source: Bloomberg (Radio)
Baystate Business: Christopher Palmer on rent control
Faculty:
Christopher J. Palmer
Source: The Hill (Opinion Piece)
Federal housing choice voucher program must be modernized
Faculty:
Christopher J. Palmer
Source: The Economist
Many consumers neither read nor understand the contracts they sign
Faculty:
Christopher J. Palmer
Source: MarketWatch (Opinion Piece)
Here's why most of us tune out when companies try to get our attention
Faculty:
Christopher J. Palmer