Johan Walden

Johan Walden is a financial economist and expert on risk analysis and financial and insurance markets, with a particular focus on portfolio risk diversification and risk regulation. He is a tenured Professor of Finance at Berkeley Haas, where he also serves as Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow and Distinguished Teaching Fellow. He regularly teaches MBA, MFE, and executive education courses covering topics in finance, asset pricing, and financial engineering. He has also served as a visiting scholar at other top universities, including NYU’s Stern School of Business, UCLA’s Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, Oxford University, and INSEAD. Walden has published over 30 academic articles in peer-reviewed journals on topics of risk, diversification, asset pricing, and applied mathematics. His research has been published in the top academic journals in his fields, including the Journal of Finance, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Risk and Insurance, Journal of Financial Economics, and the Journal of Banking and Finance. His research on heavy-tailed risks and portfolio diversification in economics, finance, and insurance was published as part of the Springer book series Lecture Notes in Statistics.

Over the course of his academic career, Walden has received over 20 honors, awards, grants, and fellowships. He has presented his research at some of the world’s preeminent universities and finance conferences, including the American Finance Association and European Finance Association, among others. He also serves as a referee for many of the top academic journals in economics, finance, and insurance, including Econometrica, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Risk and Insurance.

His consulting experience includes complex corporate litigation, where he has authored expert reports and provided expert witness testimony on issues related to investment theory, risk, diversification, risk reporting and insurance. Before entering academia, he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company’s Stockholm office, where he focused on corporate strategy, particularly within the telecommunications and financial institutions industries. Walden’s consulting experience also includes assisting government entities in assessing new programs and regulations. In 2009, he assisted The Congressional Oversight Panel in evaluating the Federal Reserve Board’s Supervisory Capital Assessment Program.

Education

• PhD, Financial Economics, Yale University
  
• MA, Financial Economics, Yale University
  
• Docent, Applied Mathematics, Uppsala University
  
• PhD, Applied Mathematics, Uppsala University
  
• MS, Business Studies and Economics, Uppsala University
  
• MS, Engineering Physics, Uppsala University
  
• BA, History, Uppsala University
  

Positions Held

At Haas since 2005

• 2019 – present, Professor, Haas School of Business
• 2012 – 2019, Associate Professor, Haas School of Business
• 2005 – 2012, Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business
• 1999 – 2002, Management Consultant, McKinsey & Company, Stockholm, Sweden
• 1997 – 1999 Postdoctoral research associate, Yale University, Department of Mathematics

Current Research and Interests

• Asset pricing
• Heavy-tailed risks
• Networks and capital markets
• Insurance

Selected Papers and Publications

• “Markup cycles, dynamic misallocation and amplification” (with Marcus Opp and Christine Parlour), Journal of Economic Theory, 2014, 154, 126-161.
• “Investor Networks in the Stock Market,” (with Han Ozsoylev, Deniz Yavuz and Recep Bildik), Review of Financial Studies , 2014, 27(5), 1323-1366.
• ”Limited Capital Market Participation and Human Capital Risk”, (with Jonathan Berk), Review of Asset Pricing Studies, 2013, 3(1), 1-37.
• “Financial Flexibility, Bank Capital Flows, and Asset Prices,” (with Christine Parlour and Richard Stanton), Journal of Finance, 2012, 67(5), 1685-1722.
• “Hedging Labor Income Risk,” (with Sebastien Betermeier, Christine Parlour and Thomas Jansson), Journal of Financial Economics, 2012, 105(3), 622-639.

Teaching

• Finance Workshop
• Introduction to Finance, EWMBA 203
• Stochastic Calculus, MFE230Q

Honors and Awards

• Schwabacher Fellowship, 2010-2011
• Earl Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2016