Jonathan A. Parker

On leave 2019-2020

Jonathan A. Parker is the Robert C. Merton (1970) Professor of Finance and codirector of the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy. He has held numerous service positions and consulting positions, including Area Head of Economics, Finance and Accounting at Sloan, editor of the NBER Macroeconomics Annual, and special adviser on Financial Stability for the Office of Financial Stability in the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2009. He currently serves an economic adviser for the Congressional Budget Office, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, an academic advisor to the JP Morgan Chase Institute, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a member of the Board of Editors of the American Economic Review. An expert in finance, macroeconomics, and household behavior, Parker 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.

Current Research Focus: Parker works on issues in household finance, FinTech, financial markets, and public policy. Current research topics include household portfolios, the evolution of financial services, the regulation of consumer finance, big data in financial markets, and the efficacy of recent policies like economic stimulus payments and the "Cash for Clunkers" program.