2024 Princeton Initiative
The 15th annual gathering will take place on September 6-8, 2024, at Princeton University.
Watch videos and see lecture materials by visiting the 2023 Princeton Initiative program.
The 2023 Session began with lectures from Professor Yuliy Sannikov. “Solving macromodels with financial frictions.”
Following the Princeton tradition of incorporating financial frictions in macroeconomic models—scholars like Ben Bernanke come to mind—this annual program on Princeton’s campus brings together second-year Ph.D. students from around the world who plan to write a Ph.D. thesis at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance.
Organized by Princeton BCF Director Markus Brunnermeier and Stanford Professor Yuliy Sannikov, the Initiative aims to bridge the gap between modern finance and macroeconomics. Through several days of lectures and activities, promising young researchers are exposed to macroeconomic models with financial frictions and/or non-standard expectations, all while having the opportunity to network and learn from one another.
How to Participate
Students must be nominated to attend by either their department or a faculty member. Nominations can be sent to Jessica H.B. Roethel at jessicab@princeton.edu. The nomination period for the 2024 session is now closed.
To participate, students must have successfully completed the second-year sequence of their Ph.D. program. Ideally, they should have some prior exposure to continuous time finance. The final selection of participants will be made by the organizers of the event, Markus Brunnermeier and Yuliy Sannikov.
Student Feedback
Here are a few things students have said about their participation in the Princeton Initiative:
“The Princeton Initiative provides an excellent opportunity for PhD students entering the dissertation phase to engage with topics at the frontier of Macro-Finance together with leading researchers examining them. The seminar style presentations span a wide range of areas including heterogeneous agent models, bubbles, public finance, demand-based asset pricing, the role of money and the history of the modern financial system. In addition to that, the practice sessions put special emphasis on teaching continuous time modelling tools used to solve many important questions in Macro-Finance. Lastly, the Princeton Initiative also serves as a great social vehicle by getting together PhD students across universities who work in similar areas allowing them to talk about research both among each other and with the involved faculty. In short: A must-attend event for PhDs seeking to pursue research in this field.”
“Best advanced theoretical PhD course I’ve ever taken!”
“It was the most stimulating single-event in economics I’ve had yet in my career, both due to the great lectures and the incredible conversations I had with my peers.”
“I just wanted to say a massive thank you for organizing this initiative. I really think these models are very elegant and tractable, and I have hugely appreciated both the material from you guys and the incredibly interesting speakers throughout.1