Michael Faulkender

Michael Faulkender’s research focuses on empirical corporate finance in the areas of capital structure, risk management, corporate liquidity, and executive compensation. He served as the Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist of the United States Department of the Treasury from 2019 to 2021. In that role, he advised the Secretary on domestic and international issues that impacted the economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he assisted in negotiating the CARES Act and was the senior Treasury official who led the implementation of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). In addition, he chaired the Social Security and Medicare working group that develops the economic and demographic assumptions that are used in the annual Trustees reports and he also chaired the interagency taskforce on Long-Term Care Insurance. His academic research has been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies and has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and The New York Times.