John H. Cochrane

Senior Fellow
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Biography: 

John H. Cochrane is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and an adjunct scholar of the CATO Institute. 

Before joining Hoover, Cochrane was  a Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and earlier at its Economics Department. Cochrane earned a bachelor’s degree in physics at MIT and his PhD in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a junior staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisers (1982–83).

Cochrane’s recent publications include the book Asset Pricing and articles on dynamics in stock and bond markets, the volatility of exchange rates, the term structure of interest rates, the returns to venture capital, liquidity premiums in stock prices, the relation between stock prices and business cycles, and option pricing when investors can’t perfectly hedge. His monetary economics publications include articles on the relationship between deficits and inflation, the effects of monetary policy, and the fiscal theory of the price level. He has also written articles on macroeconomics, health insurance, time-series econometrics, financial regulation, and other topics. He was a coauthor of The Squam Lake Report. His Asset Pricing PhD class is available online via Coursera. 

Cochrane frequently contributes editorial opinion essays to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg.com, and other publications. He maintains the Grumpy Economist blog.

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Recent Commentary

Featured

Deflation Puzzle

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Larry Summers writes an eloquent FT column "A world stumped by stubbornly low inflation" Market measures of inflation expectations have been collapsing and on the Fed’s preferred inflation measure are now in the range of 1-1.25 per cent over the next decade.

Analysis and Commentary

Premium Increase Insurance

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Marginal Revolution and the Wall Street Journal both pass on a great quote from Warren Buffett: It’s understandable that the sponsor of the proxy proposal believes Berkshire is especially threatened by climate change because we are a huge insurer, covering all sorts of risks

Analysis and Commentary

Sanders Multiplier Magic

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Friday, February 26, 2016

The critiques of Gerald Friedman's analysis of the Sanders economic plan continue. The latest and most detailed and careful so far is by David and Christina Romer.

Analysis and Commentary

Negative Rates And FTPL

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Thursday, February 25, 2016

I've devoted most of my monetary economics research agenda to the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level in the last two decades (collection here). 

Analysis and Commentary

Greece And Taxes

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Monday, February 22, 2016

An interview for the Greek Reporter, in English, perhaps cheering the like-minded and sure to infuriate some conventional wisdom.

Analysis and Commentary

Right Wing NPR

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Friday, February 19, 2016

I was listening to NPR this morning over coffee, and nearly spilled it. Host Steve Inskeep was interviewing Mark Surman, Mozilla founder, on the topic of Apple refusing to hand over the keys to the Iphone to the Federal Government (and anyone who might be able to hack the Federal Government.

Federal Reserve
Featured

Kashkari On TBTF

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Friday, February 19, 2016

Neel Kashkari, the new president of the Minneapolis Fed, is making a splash with a speech about too big to fail, and the need for a deeper and more fundamental reform than Dodd Frank. I am delighted to hear a Federal Reserve official offering, in public, some of the kinds of thoughts that I and like-minded radicals have been offering for the last few years.

Featured

Sad CEA Letter

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Wednesday, February 17, 2016

And just as I was getting all weepy about how great and a-political, obejective, non-partisan and all that the CEA is, along comes an open letter from past CEA chairs Alan Krueger, Austan Goolsbee, Chirstina Romer, and Laura D'Andrea Tyson to Senator Sanders, to restore my cynicism.

Analysis and Commentary

CEA History

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The Council of Economic Advisers has released a history of the CEA on its' 70th anniversary, as Chapter 7 of the Economic Report of the President. This piece is very interesting for economists interested in policy.

Analysis and Commentary

Brooks V. Krugman

by John H. Cochrane via Grumpy Economist
Monday, February 15, 2016

I usually try to steer away from Presidential politics, and especially from commentators' habit of analyzing character. But last week's New York Times had two particularly interesting columns that invite breaking the rule: "I Miss Barack Obama" by David Brooks and "How America Was Lost" by Paul Krugman.

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Current Online Courses

Asset Pricing, Part 1, via Coursera and the University of Chicago

This course is part one of a two-part introductory survey of graduate-level academic asset pricing. We will focus on building the intuition and deep understanding of how the theory works, how to use it, and how to connect it to empirical facts. This first part builds the basic theoretical and empirical tools around some classic facts. The second part delves more deeply into applications and empirical evaluation. Learn more. . .