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Jonathan Parker
Jonathan A. Parker

FINANCE
Professor of Finance

Print Overview
Jonathan A. Parker is Professor of Finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and National Bureau of Economic Research NBER) Faculty Research Fellow.  Dr. Parker received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he was awarded the Robert Solow Endowment Prize for excellence in research and teaching. Prior to his present position at Northwestern, Dr. Parker has held faculty positions at the Princeton University department of economics, where he was affiliated with the Bendheim Center for Finance and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, at the department of economics at the University of Wisconsin, where he was the Maude P. and Milton J. Shoemaker Fellow, and at the University of Michigan Business School, where he was a Society of Scholars Fellow.  Professor Parker has been named an Alfred P. Sloan research fellow and a National Bureau of Economics Aging and Health Economics Fellow, and his research has received support from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation.  

Professor Parker currently serves on the Academic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of Macroeconomics, and as Associate Editor for the Journal of Money Credit and Banking. He is a member of the American Economic Association and Econometric Society.  

Professor Parker teaches macroeconomics and finance, and his research focuses on: macroeconomic risk and stock returns, taxation and consumer spending, national saving and wealth, income risk and consumer demand, and psychology and economics.

Areas of Expertise
Asset Pricing (Equity Markets/Stock Market, Investments and Portfolio Choice)
Behavioral Economics (Includes: Behavioral Finance)
Behavioral Finance (Includes: Behavioral Economics)
Equity Markets (Stock Market) (Includes: Asset Pricing, Investments and Portfolio Choice)
Investments and Portfolio Choice (Includes: Asset Pricing, Equity Markets/Stock Market)
Macroeconomics (Includes: Monetary Economics, Federal Reserve, Interest Rates)
Monetary Policy (Monetary Economics, Federal Reserve, Interest Rates)
  • Recent Media Coverage

    Christian Science Monitor (The New Economy blog): Will Americans become big personal savers again? - 10/5/2009

    Washington Post: Waiting for Deep Pockets to Open - 9/9/2009

    Los Angeles Times: Getting the affluent to spend again is a puzzle for luxury retailers - 9/9/2009

    New York Times (Economix blog): What About the Upper Middle Class? - 8/21/2009

    See all Kellogg in the Media
Print Vita
Education
PhD, 1996, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MA, 1991, University of Michigan
BA, 1988, Economics, Mathematics, Yale University

Academic Positions
Professor of Finance, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2007-present
Associate Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 2006-2007
Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 1999-2006
Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin Madison, 1997-1999
Visiting Assistant Professor and Research Fellow, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 1996-1997

Other Professional Experience
Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006-present
, Bendheim Center for Finance, 2001-2007
Visiting Scholar, Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics, 2002-2002

Grants and Awards
Smith Richardson Foundation Grant, Smith Richardson Foundation, 2008 - present
National Science Foundation Research Grant, National Science Foundation, 1999 - 2003
Research Grant, Office of Tax Policy Research, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Office of Tax Policy Research, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 1996
Robert Solow Endowment Prize, MIT Department of Economics, MIT Department of Economics, 1996

Editorial Positions
Board of Editors, American Economic Journal of Macroeconomics, 2007-Present
Associate Editor, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, 2001-Present

Service
American Economic Association, Committee on Economic Statistics
1/01/2008
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Academic Advisory Council
1/01/2008

Conference Presentations
American Economic Association Annual Meetings, San Francisco CA, "The Integrated Financial and Real System of National Accounts for the United States: Does it Presage the Financial Crisis?" (with M. G. Palumbo), January 2009
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, "Preliminary Estimates of the Impact of the 2008 Economic Stimulus Payments on Consumption Demand" (with C. Broda) September 2008
Briefing for the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisers, “The Effect of the Tax Rebate on Consumer Spending" June 2008
American Economic Association Annual Meetings, San Francisco CA, "Who Bears Aggregate Fluctuations and How? Estimates and Implications for Consumption Inequality" (with A. Vissing-Jorgensen), January 2009

Consulting
Consultant, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 2008 - present
Long-Term Modelling Advisory Group, Congressional Budget Office, 2002-2004  
Print Research
Research Interests
Asset pricing, macroeconomics, behavioral economics, public economics

Articles
Brunnermeier, Markus, Christian Gollier and Jonathan Parker. 2007. Optimal Beliefs, Asset Prices, and the Preference for Skewed Returns. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings. 97(2): 159-165.
AbstractLink
Hsieh, Chang-Tai and Jonathan Parker. 2007. Taxes and Growth in a Financially Underdeveloped Country: Evidence from the Chilean Investment Boom. Economia. 8(1): 1-40.
AbstractLink
Johnson, David, Jonathan Parker and Nicholas Souleles. 2006. Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001. American Economic Review. 96(5): 1589-1610.
AbstractLink
Parker, Jonathan and Christian Julliard. 2005. Consumption Risk and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns. Journal of Political Economy. 113(1): 185-222.
AbstractLink
Brunnermeier, Markus and Jonathan Parker. 2005. Optimal Expectation. American Economic Review. 95(4): 1092-1118.
AbstractLink
Parker, Jonathan and Bruce Preston. 2005. Precautionary Saving and Consumption Fluctuations. American Economic Review. 95(4): 1119-1143.
AbstractLink
Parker, Jonathan. 2004. Comment on "Federal Government Debt and Interest Rates" by Eric M. Engen and Glen R. Hubbarb. NBER Macroeconomics Annual. 19: 139-147.
Link
Ait-Sahalia, Yacine, Jonathan Parker and Motohiro Yogo. 2004. Luxury Goods and the Equity Premium. Journal of Finance. 59(6): 2959-3004.
AbstractLink
Parker, Jonathan. 2003. Consumption Risk and Expected Stock Returns. American Economic Review. 93(2): 376-382.
AbstractLink
Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and Jonathan Parker. 2002. Consumption Over the Life Cycle. Econometrica. 70(1): 47-89.
AbstractLink
Parker, Jonathan. 2002. Discussion of: Athanasios Orphanides and John Williams "Robust Monetary Policy Rules with Unknown Natural Rates". Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. 33(2): 119-145.
Parker, Jonathan. 2001. The Consumption Risk of the Stock Market. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. 32(2): 279-348.
Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and Jonathan Parker. 2001. The Empirical Importance of Precautionary Saving. American Economic Review. 91(2): 406-412.
AbstractLink
Parker, Jonathan. 2000. Discussion of: "Real Estate and the Macroeconomy". Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. 31(2): 150-158.
Parker, Jonathan. 1999. The Reaction of Household Consumption to Predictable Changes in Social Security Taxes. American Economic Review. 89(4): 959-973.
Link
Christian, Charles, Rebecca London, Jonathan Parker and Joel Slemrod. 1997. April 15 Syndrome. Economic Inquiry. 35(4): 695-709.
AbstractLink
Solon, Gary, Robert Barsky and Jonathan Parker. 1994. Measuring the Cyclicality of Real Wages: How Important is the Composition Bias?. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 109(1): 1-25.
AbstractLink
Working Papers
Parker, Jonathan and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen. 2009. Who Bears Aggregate Fluctuations and How?.
Link
Palumbo, Michael G. and Jonathan Parker. 2009. The Integrated Financial and Real System of National Accounts for the United States: Does it Presage the Financial Crisis? .
Link
Brunnermeier, Markus, Filippos Papakonstantinou and Jonathan Parker. 2008. An Economic Model of the Planning Fallacy.
AbstractLink
Book Chapters
Parker, Jonathan. 2008. "Euler Equations." In New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, edited by Lawrence Blume and Steven N. Durlauf, London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2nd edition.
AbstractLink
Parker, Jonathan. 2000. "Spendthrift in America? On two decades of decline of the U.S. saving rate." In NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1999, edited by B. Bernanke and J. Rotemberg, vol. 14, 317-370.

 
Print Teaching
Teaching Interests
Asset pricing, macroeconomics
Doctoral
Introduction to Financial Theory (FINC-485-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Finance

This course is an introduction to asset pricing theory and portfolio choice. The first part of the course introduces arbitrage theory, including state prices, equivalent martingale measures, beta pricing and the associated mean-variance analysis. The second part deals with optimal consumption/portfolio choice of agents and competitive equilibrium in the context of general preferences. The third part considers more detailed preference structures, including the theories of fund separation and Gorman aggregation, and expected utility theory. Time permitting, the course concludes with an introduction to rational expectations models with asymmetric information. Although the course is self-contained, it is best appreciated by students with some knowledge of microeconomics. Proficiency in elementary linear algebra and probability theory is required, as is some knowledge of basic nonlinear optimization theory.

Full-Time / Part-Time MBA
International Macroeconomics for Business Managers (FINC-941-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Finance, International Business

This course covers international macroeconomic theory and policy for business leaders. It covers the workings of the world economy and the national economies within which businesses operate. Specific topic include the measurement of national and international economic concepts; what determines which developing countries will develop and become good markets to produce in or to sell to; what causes business cycles, how policy should respond, and how recessions propagate internationally; how U.S. markets respond to U.S. government debt; and what determines the trade balance and the strength of the dollar. In addition to exploring the specific workings of the current global economy, students will learn an approach to analyzing macroeconomic issues that is useful for understanding new international economic developments.

Macroeconomic Analysis For Management (MECN-450-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Managerial Economics

This course provides an overview of modern macroeconomic issues, debates, crises and solutions. Macroeconomic models and case studies are used to better understand the historical and current behavior of the economy as a whole, to better understand the sources of the various historical and current controversies concerning macroeconomic policy and to analyze the effects of macroeconomic phenomena on managerial decision making. The first part of the course concentrates on long-run issues: the wealth of nations, economic growth, the effects of international trade and the effects of government policies on such long-run issues. The course examines the determination of employment, output, prices, wages, interest rates, national saving, investment and international flows of goods, services and assets. The second part of the course concentrates on short-run issues such as inflation, the business cycle and policies attempting to stabilize the economy's short-run fluctuations. The final part of the course focuses on international currency crises, foreign economic fluctuations and current macroeconomic policies that contribute to and combat such problems.