Jonathan A. Parker

Jonathan A. Parker is the Robert C. Merton (1970) Professor of Financial Economics at MIT's Sloan School of Management and CoDirector of the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy. 

An expert in finance, macroeconomics, and household behavior, he has published widely on topics such as macroeconomic risks and asset returns, fiscal stabilization policy, national saving, household financial decisions, the measurement of business cycles, and modeling human economic behavior.

Parker has held numerous government service and consulting positions during his career, including special adviser on financial stability for the Office of Financial Stability in the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2009. He is currently an Economic Adviser for the Congressional Budget Office, a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Board of Editors of the American Economic Review, and a coeditor of the NBER Macroeconomics Annual.

Parker holds a BA in economics and mathematics from Yale University and a PhD in economics from MIT.

Current Research Focus:  Parker works on issues in household finance, financial markets, and public policy.  Current projects include the efficacy of recent policies like economic stimulus payments and the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program at stimulating demand, the support of lending in markets with adverse selection, and portfolio choice.