The Macro Finance Research Program (MFR) expands our understanding of how financial markets affect the economy as a whole and, conversely, how the macroeconomy influences financial markets. It does so by bringing together a community of elite scholars with common ambitions to tackle these important challenges. The program operates under the auspices of the Becker Friedman Institute with generous funding support from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

For general program inquiries, please contact Diana Petrova, MFR Program Executive Director, at dpetrova@uchicago.edu.
Through sponsored research projects, conferences, and interactions with visiting scholars, this program focuses on these fundamental questions:

• How do we construct models and measurements that will better support the prudent oversight of system-wide challenges to the financial system?
• What are the best ways to incorporate broad notions of uncertainty into the analysis of economic policies for both the private and public sectors?
• What are some meaningful approaches to addressing climate change in the presence of the associated deep uncertainties?
• How does the credit cycle influence the business cycle, and how does the business cycle affect the credit cycle?
• How does macroeconomic policy uncertainty impact financial markets?
• What are the macroeconomic and financial market implications of intermediation and its impediments?

MFR Program Advisory Committee

The MFR Program Advisory Committee oversees the research agenda of the program. Members of the committee are prominent experts in macroeconomics and finance with particular interests in exploring linkages between these fields:

• Lars Peter Hansen, Professor, University of Chicago Departments of Economics, Statistics and the Booth School of Business, Committee Chair
• Fernando Alvarez, Professor, University of Chicago Department of Economics
• John Cochrane, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, and BFI Distinguished Research Fellow
• Douglas Diamond, Professor, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Zhiguo He, Professor, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• John Heaton, Professor, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Anil Kashyap, Professor, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Ralph Koijen, Professor, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Yueran Ma, Professor of Finance, University of Booth School of Business
• Stefan Nagel, Professor of Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Carolin Pflueger, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
• Thomas Sargent, Professor, New York University Department of Economics and BFI Distinguished Research Fellow
• Amir Sufi, Professor, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Harald Uhlig, Professor, University of Chicago Department of Economics

MFR Program Staff

Lars Peter Hansen David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor, UChicago; Director, BFI’s Macro Finance Research Program	Diana Petrova Executive Director, Macro Finance Research Program	Sandy Quarles Events and Operations Associate, Macro Finance Research Program
Carmen Quinn Administrative Specialist, Macro Finance Research Program	Valentina Solano Senior Program Associate, Macro Finance Research Program	Joseph Huang Research Consultant, Macro Finance Research Program
Jiaying (Jessie) Liao Predoctoral Research Professional, Faculty Supervisor: Lars Peter Hansen	Haoyang Sun Predoctoral Research Professional, Faculty Supervisor: Lars Peter Hansen	Zhaoyang Xu Predoctoral Research Professional, Faculty Supervisor: Lars Peter Hansen

MFR Program Conferences and Events

Upcoming MFR Conferences:

• 26th Annual Macro Finance Society Workshop – November 13-14, 2025 at the University of Chicago organized by Lars Peter Hansen, Carolin Pfluege and Rohan Kekre

Previous MFR Conferences:

• Frontier Topics in Macro-Finance Conference  – May 1–2, 2025 at the Gleacher Center – organized by Yueran Ma, Carolin Pflueger and Lars Peter Hansen and co-sponsored by MFR and the Fama-Miller Center
• 2025 Blue Collar Working Group – March 27–28, 2025 at the University of Chicago – organized by Lars Peter Hansen and Thomas J. Sargent 
• JPE Macro Workshop on Economic Dynamics, Uncertainty and Computation Workshop – November 13 and December 3, 2024 (co-sponsored by MFR and the Kenneth C. Griffin Applied Economics Incubator)
• 2024 MFR Summer Session for Young Scholars  – August 5–8, 2024 organized by MFR Program Advisory Committee Members (application process is now closed)
• MFR/Imperial College London 2024 Conference on Uncertainty, Climate Change, and Policy Challenges – May 2–3, 2024 in London, UK – organized by Lars Peter Hansen, Franklin Allen and Erik Chavez (co-sponsored by MFR and the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis (BHC)
• Methods for Solving and Analyzing Dynamic Models in the Face if Uncertainty and Cross-Sectional Heterogeneity Conference – March 7–8, 2024 at the University of Chicago – organized by Fernando Alvarez, Lars Peter Hansen, and Panagiotis Souganidis – co-sponsored with the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI)

Related Projects

• The Monetary and Fiscal History of Latin America (MAFHOLA)
• The Macro Financial Modeling
• Behavioral Uncertainty in Macroeconomics Project (BUMP)

Quant Macro Finance

Quant Macro Finance (QuantMFR) is an online research resource repository. The website includes both written pedagogical discussions and software support for relevant computations. It currently features several chapters of the book entitled, “Risk, Uncertainty and Value” by Lars Peter Hansen, Thomas J. Sargent and Jaroslav Borovička, along with associated notebooks that provide access to computational support. This book develops concepts and tools to support uncertainty characterizations and quantifications as they apply to potentially nonlinear stochastic equilibrium models. The QuantMFR website also includes complementary materials on model comparisons for classes on macro-finance models along with other published pedagogical discussions of tools and methods of analysis for stochastic equilibrium models. In addition, the QuantMFR website offers a variety of user-friendly code for interested scholars who wish to apply the methods.