Email: baron@cornell.edu
401J Sage Hall
Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-6201
Phone: 607-255-8686

Matthew Baron’s primary research focus is on banking crises. These periods of extreme stress in banking systems, which often involve widespread bank failures and depositor runs, are a recurring phenomenon throughout economic history. The overarching goal of his work is to uncover the fundamental sources of financial fragility, understand the mechanisms through which distress in the financial sector affects the macroeconomy, and guide policy development to prevent future banking crises. Baron is working on several new research projects related to: 1) the role of investor beliefs in driving banking crises, 2) the interplay between bank insolvency and illiquidity in driving crisis dynamics, 3) the dynamics of bank equity capitalization around crises, 4) the role of implicit creditor guarantees, 5) the reorganization of the banking sector during banking crises, and 6) the long shadow of bank distress in the aftermath of crises. More about his work on historical financial crises can be found at the website of the Quantitative Financial History Lab at Cornell University.

Baron’s published work has appeared in academic journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. His research has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and other media outlets. His research is funded by grants from the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), Governor’s Woods Foundation, Cornell Center for Social Sciences, and Einaudi Center for International Studies. He has served as a visiting researcher at the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Baron teaches Investment and Portfolio Management and Behavioral Finance at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, along with co-teaching sections for the Cornell-Tsinghua Finance MBA program and PhD in Management program. He has advised a variety of PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, and research assistants, who have subsequently attained positions at top-ranked academic institutions and central banks around the world.

Baron holds a PhD in economics from Princeton University and a BS in mathematics from Yale University.

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

• Click here to view my curriculum vitae (PDF document).

Peer-reviewed Publications

• Matthew Baron and Wei Xiong. “Credit Expansion and Neglected Crash Risk”
  Quarterly Journal of Economics, 132.2 (2017): 713-764. Online Appendix here.
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• Matthew Baron, Jonathan Brogaard, Björn Hagströmer, and Andrei Kirilenko. “Risk and Return in High Frequency Trading”,
  Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 54.3 (2019): 993-1024.
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• Matthew Baron. “Countercyclical Bank Equity Issuance”
  Review of Financial Studies, 33.9 (2020): 4186–4230.
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• Matthew Baron, Emil Verner, and Wei Xiong. “Banking Crises without Panics”
  Quarterly Journal of Economics, 136.1 (2021): 51–113.
  – Download: BVX Crisis List, Historical documentation, Full data and replication kit.
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• Matthew Baron and Tyler Muir. “Intermediaries and Asset Prices: International Evidence since 1870”
  Review of Financial Studies, 35.5 (2022): 2144–2189.
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• Isha Agarwal and Matthew Baron. “Inflation and Disintermediation”
  Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming.

Working Papers__

• Matthew Baron, Luc Laeven, Julien Pénasse, and Yevhenii Usenko. “Permanent Capital Losses after Banking Crises”
  Reject and Resubmit at the Quarterly Journal of Economics
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• Matthew Baron, Wei Xiong, and Zhijiang Ye. “Measuring Time-Varying Disaster Risk: An Empirical Analysis of ‘Dark Matter’ in Asset Prices”
  Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Finance
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• Matthew Baron, Moritz Schularick, and Kaspar Zimmermann. “Survival of the Biggest: Large Banks and Financial Crises”_
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• Matthew Baron and Daniel Dieckelmann. “Beyond Boom and Bust: Causes of Banking Crises since 1870”
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• Matthew Baron and Isaac Green. “The Aftermath of Credit Booms: Evidence from Credit Ceiling Removals”