Anna Paulson is associate director of research, a senior vice president, and director of financial markets at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Paulson is an expert on financial markets and institutions, with particular expertise on the insurance industry. In her current role, she works to expand the Chicago Fed’s impact on public policy issues related to systemic risk and financial stability. She provides senior leadership for the Chicago Fed’s Financial Markets Group, which analyzes public policy issues related to financial markets and financial infrastructure, and she has oversight responsibility for the Insurance Initiative and the Financial Research team. As associate director of research, she is a member of the senior leadership team of the Economic Research Department.

Paulson joined the Chicago Fed as an economist in 2001 after serving as an assistant professor of finance at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. In 2009, she was promoted to vice president in the Financial Markets Group and was instrumental in the formation of the Insurance Initiative, which analyzes financial stability and regulatory issues related to the insurance industry on behalf of the Federal Reserve System.

Paulson's research focuses on how risk and incomplete financial markets influence household financial choices. Her research has been published in leading scholarly journals, including the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Review of Financial Studies. She received a B.A. from Carleton College and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.