Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance
Harvard Business School
Baker Library/Bloomberg Center 359
Soldiers Field Road
Boston, MA 02163
(617) 495-6644
Please email me if you are interested in predoctoral research opportunities.
Adi Sunderam is the Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance at Harvard Business School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Economics department. He teaches Finance 2 in the MBA required curriculum and Ph.D. courses in Corporate Finance and Empirical Methods. Professor Sunderam holds a Ph.D. in business economics and an A.B. in computer science and economics, both from Harvard University. In 2009 and 2010, he served in the U.S. Treasury Department as a special assistant and liaison to the White House National Economic Council.
Professor Sunderam's research interests are in corporate finance, asset pricing, and financial intermediation. His work focuses on the organization of financial markets and its effect on asset prices and corporate investment. It has appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. He serves as a co-Editor of the Journal of Finance and an associate editor for the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Changing Perceptions and Post-Pandemic Monetary Policy (with Michael Bauer and Carolin Pflueger).
Proceedings of the 2024 Jackson Hole Economic Symposium.
Perceptions about Monetary Policy (with Michael Bauer and Carolin Pflueger). Quarterly Journal of Economics, 139(4): 2227–2278.
Estimated rules data here. Replication files here.
Segmented Arbitrage (with Emil Siriwardane and Jonathan Wallen). Journal of Finance, forthcoming.
Internet Appendix here.
The Impact of Minority Representation at Mortgage Lenders (with Scott Frame, Ruidi Huang, Erica Jiang, Yeonjoon Lee, Will Shuo Liu, and Erik Mayer), 2025. Journal of Finance, 80(2): 1209-1260.
(Note: This paper combines the working papers "The Impact of Minority Representation at Mortgage Lenders” by Frame, Huang, Mayer, and Sunderam and “Reducing Racial Disparities in Consumer Credit: The Role of Minority Loan Officers in the Era of Algorithmic Underwriting” by Jiang, Lee, and Liu.)
The Evolution of Banking in the 21st Century: Evidence and Regulatory Implications (with Sam Hanson, Victoria Ivashina, Laura Nicolae, Jeremy Stein, and Dan Tarullo). Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2024, 343-411.
The Targeting and Impact of Paycheck Protection Program Loans to Small Businesses (with Alex Bartik, Zoe Cullen, Ed Glaeser, Mike Luca, and Chris Stanton), June 2024. Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming.
Internet Appendix here.
A Quantity-Driven Theory of Term Premiums and Exchange Rates (with Robin Greenwood, Sam Hanson, and Jeremy Stein), 2023. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 138(4): 2327-2389.
Finalist, AQR Insight Award 2021. Internet Appendix here.
Using Models to Persuade (with Josh Schwartzstein), 2021. American Economic Review, 111(1): 276-323.
The Cross Section of Bank Value (with Mark Egan and Stefan Lewellen), 2021. Review of Financial Studies, 35(5): 2101–2143. Winner of the RFS Michael J. Brennan Best Paper Award, 2023.
Financial Market Risk Perceptions and the Macroeconomy (with Carolin Pflueger and Emil Siriwardane), 2020. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(3), 1443-1491.
Finalist, AQR Insight Award, 2018. Internet Appendix here. PVS data here. Replication files here.
Business Credit Programs in the Pandemic Era (with Sam Hanson, Jeremy Stein, and Eric Zwick), 2020. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2020, 1-50.
Internet Appendix here.
Do Fire Sales Create Externalities? (with Sergey Chernenko), 2019. Journal of Financial Economics, 135(3), 602-628.
Internet Appendix here.
Social Risk, Fiscal Risk and the Portfolio of Government Programs (with Sam Hanson and David Scharfstein), 2019. Review of Financial Studies, 32(6): 2341-2382.
Internet Appendix here.
The Fed, the Bond Market, and Gradualism in Monetary Policy (with Jeremy Stein), 2018. Journal of Finance, 73(3), 1015-1060.
Strengthening and Streamlining Bank Capital Regulation (with Robin Greenwood, Sam Hanson, and Jeremy Stein), 2017. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2017, 479-565.
Internet Appendix here.
Inflation Bets or Deflation Hedges? The Changing Risks of Nominal Bonds (with John Campbell and Luis Viceira), 2017. Critical Finance Review, 6(2): 263-301.
Internet Appendix here.
Who Neglects Risk? Investor Experience and the Credit Boom (with Sergey Chernenko and Sam Hanson), 2016. Journal of Financial Economics, 122(2), 248-269.
Internet Appendix here.
Money Creation and the Shadow Banking System, 2015. Review of Financial Studies, 28 (4): 939-977.
Internet Appendix here.
An Evaluation of Money Market Fund Reform Proposals (with Sam Hanson and David Scharfstein), 2015. IMF Economic Review, 63(4): 984-1023.
Frictions in Shadow Banking: Evidence from the Lending Behavior of Money Market Funds (with Sergey Chernenko), 2014. Review of Financial Studies, 27 (6): 1717-1750.
The Growth and Limits of Arbitrage: Evidence from Short Interest (with Sam Hanson), 2014. Review of Financial Studies, 27 (4): 1238-1286.
Winner of the RFS Rising Scholar Award, 2014. Internet Appendix Here.
Are there too many safe securities? Securitization and the incentives for information production (with Sam Hanson), 2013. Journal of Financial Economics, 108(3): 565-584. Internet Appendix here.
The Real Consequences of Market Segmentation (with Sergey Chernenko), 2012. Review of Financial Studies, 25(7): 2041-2069.
Winner of the RFS Young Researcher Prize, 2012.
The Variance of Non-Parametric Treatment Effect Estimators in the Presence of Clustering (with Sam Hanson), 2011. Review of Economics and Statistics, 94(4): 1197-1201.
Stata and Matlab Code here.
Dynamic Competition for Sleepy Deposits (with Mark Egan, Ali Hortacsu, Nathan Kaplan, and Vincent Yao), March 2026.
Hidden Risk (with Daniel Barth, Phillip Monin, and Emil Siriwardane), June 2025.
Sharing Models to Interpret Data (with Josh Schwartzstein), December 2025.
Measuring the Perceived Liquidity of the Corporate Bond Market (with Sergey Chernenko), July 2020.
Internet Appendix here.
Blockchain Technology and Stablecoins in Traditional Finance (with Eric Budish), 2026. Prepared for the 7th Annual Macroprudential Conference.
Current Perceptions about Monetary Policy (with Michael Bauer and Carolin Pflueger), 2025. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letters.
Lessons Learned from Support to Business during COVID-19 (with Gabe Chodorow-Reich and Ben Iverson), 2022. In Recession Remedies: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Economic Policy Response to COVID-19, edited by Wendy Edelberg, Louise Sheiner, and David Wessel, 123-162. Washington, D.C. Brookings Institution.
Business Continuity Insurance in the Next Disaster (with Sam Hanson and Eric Zwick), 2021. In Rebuilding the Post-Pandemic Economy, edited by Melissa S. Kearney and Amy Ganz. Aspen Institute Press.
How Should U.S. Bank Regulators Respond to the COVID-19 Crisis? (with Michael Blank, Sam Hanson, and Jeremy Stein), 2020.
The Financial Regulatory Reform Agenda in 2017 (with Robin Greenwood, Sam Hanson, and Jeremy Stein), 2017.
The Economics of Housing Finance Reform (with David Scharfstein), 2011. In The Future of Housing Finance, edited by Martin Neil Baily. Brookings Institution Press.
Market Power in Mortgage Lending and the Transmission of Monetary Policy (with David Scharfstein), April 2017.
Internet Appendix here.
Liquidity Transformation in Asset Management: Evidence from the Cash Holdings of Mutual Funds (with Sergey Chernenko), June 2016.
Joint winner of the of the ESRB research prize in memory of Ieke van den Burg.
The Rise and Fall of Demand for Securitizations (with Sergey Chernenko and Sam Hanson), December 2014.