PhD student Benjamin Knox will join the Federal Reserve Board in Washington

The Department of Finance and FRIC Center for Financial Frictions are very proud to announce that PhD student Benjamin Knox has accepted an offer from the Federal Reserve Board in Washington as an Economist. Benjamin will finish his PhD in June and take up his new position in the Fall of 2021.

Benjamin Knox has been on the academic job market in 2020/2021 with his job market paper:

"Asset-Driven Insurance Pricing"

We develop a theory that connects insurance premiums, insurance companies’ investment behavior, and equilibrium asset prices. Consistent with the model's key predictions, we show empirically that (1) insurers with more stable insurance funding take more investment risk and, therefore, earn higher average investment returns; (2) insurance premiums are lower when expected investment returns are higher, both in the cross section of insurance companies and in the time series, and both for life insurance companies and the property and casualty industry. Consistent with a causal interpretation of these results, we find insurance premiums move similarly when investment returns change exogenously due to mergers.

For more information about Benjamin Knox, see here.

You can find more information about the Department of Finance’s PhD placements here.