Simone Lenzu

Simone Lenzu is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, where he has been a faculty member since 2018. He is also an academic consultant for the National Bank of Belgium and affiliated with research networks including the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR/VoxEU). His academic work bridges finance, macroeconomics, and industrial organization, with a strong empirical and quantitative focus on firm behavior and aggregate economic outcomes.

• PhD in Economics, University of Chicago
• MA in Economics, University of Chicago
• MS in Economics, Bocconi University
• BS in Finance, Bocconi University

His research centers on understanding how financial and real market frictions—such as credit constraints, pricing rigidities, and institutional distortions—affect firm investment, productivity, resource allocation, and macroeconomic fluctuations. He emphasizes a micro-to-macro approach, combining rich firm-level datasets with structural and reduced-form econometric techniques to establish causal relationships and quantify aggregate implications. Key themes include the real effects of financial shocks, the dynamics of inflation and pricing, productivity spillovers across space and firms, and the efficiency of credit allocation.

His recent publications span top journals like Review of Economic Studies, American Economic Review, Econometrica, and Journal of International Economics. His work often features collaborations with leading economists such as Mark Gertler, Xavier Giroud, and Viral Acharya. He has contributed to understanding the scarring effects of financial crises, the structure of the Phillips curve using microdata, and the propagation of productivity gains through multi-plant firms.

• Financial shocks and productivity dynamics
• Monetary policy and inflation mechanisms
• Resource misallocation and TFP losses
• Banking and sovereign debt linkages
• Art market and innovation valuation
• Networks and systemic risk

Professor Lenzu advises several PhD students, including Luca Gagliardone (Yale), Quinn Maingi (USC), and Yannis Cabossioras (Federal Reserve Board). He has received research support through collaborations with central banks and policy institutions. His current working papers explore topics such as zombie lending, shadow costs of credit, and bankruptcy reforms, reflecting a strong interest in policy-relevant macro-financial questions.

He is actively involved in research dissemination through media outlets such as the New York Times, VoxEU, and Huffington Post, particularly on issues of inflation, productivity, and financial stability. He teaches courses in finance and structural econometric methods.