Jonathan Wright

Jonathan Wright

Professor

Contact Information

Research Interests: Time Series Econometrics, Empirical Macroeconomics, Finance

Education: PhD, Harvard University

The majority of my research is focused on econometrics, empirical macroeconomics and empirical finance, but my interests span a wide range of topics, including forecasting in a data-rich environment, the high-frequency effects of news announcements, term structure analysis and the econometrics of weak identification.

Working Papers

"Breaks in the Phillips Curve: Evidence from Panel Data" (joint with Simon Smith and Allan Timmermann)

"Seasonal Adjustment of NIPA data" -- [Internet Appendix]

"Optimal Seasonal Filtering"

"Jumps in Bond Yields at Known Times" (joint with Don Kim).

Material For Published Papers

Excel Data from “Unconventional Monetary Policy and International Risk Premia” (joint with John Rogers and Chiara Scotti).

Web Appendix for “What Does Monetary Policy do to Long-Term Interest Rates at the Zero Lower Bound?”

Web Appendix for "Macroeconomics and the Term Structure"

Excel Data from "Term Premia and Inflation Uncertainty: Empirical Evidence from an International Panel Dataset"

Web Appendix for "The Economics of Options-Implied Inflation Probability Density Functions" (joint with Yuriy Kitsul)

180.266 - Financial Markets and Institutions

This is an introductory course on financial markets and institutions. The course will cover monetary policy and the financial system. The major financial markets and institutions and their interrelationships will be discussed. Topics in central banking and financial stability will be emphasized.

Course Website

180.367 - Investments and Portfolio Management
This is an introductory course in investments. The course is broken into four parts. The first part covers the fundamental concepts of asset returns, risk, and risk-aversion, and then studies how investors should optimally choose their portfolios given the observed patterns of risk and return. The second part of the course studies the reverse question: given how investors choose their portfolios, what are the equilibrium patterns of risk and expected return in financial markets: in other words, what is the expected return that various types of assets must earn to compensate investors for bearing their risk. The second question is studied in the context of two theories of returns: the capital asset pricing model and arbitrage pricing theory. The third part of the course studies the empirical evidence for and against the equilibrium theories of asset returns, with an emphasis on the evidence in support and against the efficient markets hypothesis. The fourth and final part of the course studies three classes of assets in more detail. The topics that are covered include models of equity valuation, bond valuation and hedging, and option valuation and hedging.

Course Website

180.607 - Macroeconometrics

This course will cover a range of topics in time series econometrics and empirical macroeconomics and finance that arise in current research. This course should be taken by people with an interest in either empirical macro or empirical finance and is likely to be helpful to a graduate student with time-series empirical interests, especially in searching for a dissertation topic.

Course Website