John C. Chu
Hello, I am excited to welcome you to my website
I am an Australian economist born in China. Chung-Yen Chu is the Wade-Giles romanization and presentation of my name in Chinese characters (朱中彦). Joining Monash University in 2016, I am Dean’s Commendation for Excellence in Research in 2020.
I have publications in The Journal of Finance, The Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Management Science. My research papers have won awards, including the William F. Sharpe Award, been presented at academic conferences, including the American Economic Association (AEA), American Finance Association (AFA), and Western Finance Association (WFA), and been featured in news media, including Bloomberg, The Economist, etc. My research proposals have been funded by the Early Career Scheme and The Research Grants Council Hong Kong.
I earned a Ph.D. in Finance in 2009 from Indiana University Bloomington (IUB), an M.B.A. from the University of Oxford, and a B.E. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
With a rich background of multiple cultures, I declare my sole Australian nationality and proudly call Australia my home country. I cancelled my Beijing household registration (注銷北京戶口) in 2016. The Hong Kong Immigration Department confirmed in 2025 that I had declared a change of nationality (國籍變更申報) to Australia.
Since 2001, I have been on a journey of faith towards Christianity. John C. Chu is my choice of cultural appreciation. I renounce the name of Zhongyan Zhu, the CCP’s pinyin of my name, in 2022.
What’s new
Updated on September 30, 2025. Since the second half of 2021, I have been developing a second-generation model for the bank loan business: a wealth growth train on which three agents share risks. The model has three extensions on the entrepreneur, the bank, and the household. In “A Win-Win Loan Contract in Profit Uncertainty,” I introduce a wedge of profit uncertainty between innovations and monopolistic profits, as described in Romer (1990). In “Self-Healing Loan Maintenance”, I identify profits from good loans as the endogenous growth engine of the bank loan business. I define wealth accumulation as the permanent interest of households. The definition is intuitive because wealth is the source for consumption and investment, and the latter will grow a family’s wealth. Households withdraw their deposits because they feel unsafe with their deposit principal. The model of a wealth growth train offers a new explanation of financial instability in “Great Recession and Systemically Important Banks”.
Contact
- Email: john.chu@monash.edu Office: W1007, 20 Chancellors Walk (Menzies Building), Clayton VIC 3168, Australia