Asset Pricing Program Director Transition

From: James Poterba <poterba_at_nber.org>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2019 10:49:31 -0400

Dear Asset Pricing Program Members -

I am very grateful to the many program members who have spoken with me
since Monika Piazzesi announced that she was ready to pass the baton of
program leadership.  I have learned a great deal about the exciting
streams of current research in the field of asset pricing, and about the
factors that have contributed to the program's success and that will
serve as the foundation for its continuing intellectual excitement in
the future.

I am delighted to announce that Ralph Koijen and Sydney Ludvigson have
agreed to serve as co-directors of the Asset Pricing Program, effective
in September.  They are both wide-ranging scholars with a deep
commitment to the field.  Ralph's research touches on asset allocation,
intermediary-based asset pricing, the determinants of interest rates,
and other issues.  He is the AQR Capital Management Professor of Finance
at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, and has
been an NBER affiliate since 2010.  Sydney, the Julius Silver, Roslyn S.
Silver, and Enid Silver Winslow Professor of Economics at NYU, studies
the links between asset markets and macroeconomic activity, with
particular emphasis on the forces that determine risk premia and asset
valuations in stock, bond, and housing markets.  She has been an NBER
affiliate since 2003.   Both Ralph and Sydney have been very active in
the Asset Pricing Program, and I look forward to working with them to
lead the program to new heights.  Please welcome them to their new roles.

I also hope that you will make every effort to join me for dinner in
Cambridge on Wednesday evening, July 10, when the Asset Pricing program
community will gather at the Hotel Marlowe to thank Monika for her
extraordinary service as program director for the last twelve years.  I
look forward to seeing you there; all best wishes.

Jim Poterba
Received on Thu Jun 27 2019 - 11:37:45 EDT