Speakers

Jordan van Rijn

Senior Economist, Credit Union National Association

Jordan is a Senior Economist at the Credit Union National Association and Lecturer in the department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a Fellow at the UW-Madison Center for Financial Security and serves on the board of Working Capital for Community Needs, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit social impact investment organization. Jordan received his PhD in 2018 from the department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at UW-Madison and also holds degrees from UC-San Diego's School of Global Policy & Strategy and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Jordan conducts research on financial cooperatives and is particularly interested in comparing the structures, incentives and related outcomes of credit unions and commercial banks. Current research projects include comparing subprime mortgage lending and loan performance at credit unions and banks during the 2007-2009 financial crisis; examining differences in auto loan rates between credit unions and other lenders; exploring differences in branch location patterns between credit unions and banks; and investigating how banks and credit unions differ in their pricing strategies in response to exogenous changes in local market power.

Prior to his PhD, Jordan interned and worked for ACCION, ideas42, FINCA International, Mama Hope, Timor Aid and the International Rescue Committee, with significant international experience in Colombia, Nicaragua, Kenya, East Timor, China and Australia. Originally from San Francisco, Jordan now lives in Madison with his wife and two kids.