An economist by training, Sharon Tennyson’s primary research focus is the impact of laws and government regulations on the wellbeing of consumers in markets. Recognizing that government actions may alter firms’ operations and/or consumers’ decisions in markets, her work explores the effects of regulations on these behaviors and the changes in market outcomes that result. Much of her work has studied insurance markets, but she has also written on the regulation of credit cards, prescription drugs and airlines. 

Professor Tennyson is the editor of the International Review of Financial Consumers and a Senior Associate Editor of the Journal of Risk and Insurance. She is a former president of the Risk Theory Society. 

Professor Tennyson is a faculty Fellow of Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and a member of the advisory board for Cornell’s Program in Infrastructure Policy.

She received her undergraduate degree from UCLA and her Ph.D. from Northwestern.