Faculty
John Parsons is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is also the CoDirector of MIT’s CANES Low Carbon Energy Center which explores new avenues for nuclear fission, and a Research Affiliate at MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Parsons is a financial economist specializing in risk management, corporate finance, and valuation. His research focuses on the problems of risk in energy and environment markets, the role of trading operations in energy companies, and the valuation and financing of investments in energy markets. For ten years Parsons worked in the finance practice at the economics consulting firm CRA International, where he was a vice president and principal. He worked with many major international oil companies, mining companies and commodity processors, electric utilities, and international pharmaceutical companies on a wide variety of risk management and valuation matters.
Parsons has taught on the finance faculty at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, the Zicklin School of Business at the City University of New York’s Baruch College, and the Columbia Business School.
He holds a BA in Economics from Princeton University and a PhD in Economics from Northwestern University.
Senga, Juan Ramon L., Audun Botterud, John E. Parsons, S. Drew Story, and Christopher R. Knittel. Nature Energy. Forthcoming.
Parsons, John, Working Paper. September 2009.
De Roo, Guillaume and John Parsons, Working Paper. September 2009.
Parsons, John. Journal of Applied Corporate Finance Vol. 21, No. 1 (2009): 79-86.
Xiaochun Zhang and John Parsons.
MIT Sloan School of Management course offerings like AI-Augmented Work, Defense and Dual-Use Ventures, and Leading Agentic AI Transformation in Organizations anticipate businesses’ future needs.
California would save billions of dollars while meeting climate goals, according to new MIT Sloan research
One barrier to further nuclear development in New England is that the small modular reactors championed by innovators are still far from being grid-ready, said senior lecturer John Parsons. "It's wonderful that we have these startup companies," said Parsons, referring to multiple companies angling to begin producing small modular nuclear reactors. Those companies are "fantastic, good for the economy, good for the vibrancy of our society,” he said. But, he added, "it's not going to put any electrons on the grid tomorrow."
"If we don't receive the imports from Canada, we have to switch on more expensive plants. We could get the power from those more expensive plants, but we would then be increasing our CO2 emissions in addition to paying higher costs," said senior lecturer John Parsons. Parsons noted that this electricity could be more expensive because it runs on gas, which, unlike renewable power, would require the purchase of fuel.
Keeping California's last operating nuclear station, Diablo Canyon, running from 2030 to 2045 could offer net savings of capital and operating costs totaling more than $7.6 billion, or more than $500 million per year of continued operations, according to a new analysis by senior lecturer John Parsons, a research affiliate with the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Keeping California's only nuclear power plant running could save the state billions of dollars. That's the conclusion of a new research commentary by senior lecturer John Parsons. Extending the Diablo Canyon Power Plant's state permission to operate from its current 2030 cap to the 2045 timeline that federal regulators recently approved could save California ratepayers $7.6 billion to $20 billion, wrote Parsons.
