Nick Pretnar

Nick Pretnar is assistant director of the Laboratory for Aggregate Economics and Finance (LAEF) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.

His research focuses on household finance, with particular emphasis on how behavioral factors and macroeconomic trends influence consumption and savings decisions. His work also examines broader questions in macroeconomics and consumer financial behavior.

Previously, Pretnar was an adjunct professor at the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School, where he taught managerial economics and macroeconomics in MBA and Executive MBA programs. Before that, he was a postdoctoral scholar at LAEF.

Pretnar has also held short-term research appointments at the Federal Reserve Banks of St. Louis, Cleveland, and Philadelphia.

Among his honors, Pretnar received the Alexander Henderson Award for Excellence in Economic Theory from Carnegie Mellon University and the Academic Research Colloquium for Financial Planning Best Paper Award in household finance.

Pretnar earned a Ph.D. in economics and a master’s in economics from Carnegie Mellon University. He also holds a bachelor’s in English, a bachelor’s in mathematics, and a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Missouri-Columbia.