Maarit Valkonen

Maarit Valkonen is Director of the Optimal Policy and Applications Division at the Institute for Advanced Dynamic Uncertainty, the division responsible for translating IADU's mathematical research programme into rigorous, deployable frameworks for sovereign institutions. She holds a PhD in Mathematics and Systems Analysis from Aalto University (Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis), where her doctoral research developed quantitative tools for optimal policy design under structural uncertainty, combining stochastic control theory with the theory of robust optimisation to derive decision frameworks applicable to problems in which the governing model is itself unknown or partially identified. Her thesis introduced a class of tractable minimax formulations for central bank intervention problems and established their equivalence, under mild regularity conditions, to the viscosity solutions of a family of second-order HJB equations with uncertain diffusion coefficients.

Following her doctorate, Valkonen held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Research Directorate General of the European Central Bank, where she contributed to the development of quantitative methodologies for macro-prudential stress testing and optimal capital buffer design. Her work at the ECB produced analytic frameworks for capital adequacy assessment under systemic shock scenarios, drawing on mean field game theory to model the strategic interdependence of financial institutions subject to common regulatory constraints. This institutional experience gave her a precise understanding of the gap between what central banks need analytically and what existing tools can provide — a gap that defines the mandate of her division at IADU.

Valkonen's research spans the quantitative foundations of policy analysis: optimal stopping and impulse control models for fiscal and monetary intervention, HJB approaches to sovereign debt sustainability under stochastic interest rate dynamics, mean field models for large-population regulatory design, and the mathematics of systemic risk measurement and macro-prudential calibration. What distinguishes her work is its dual register — she operates with full mathematical rigour while maintaining direct contact with the institutional constraints and operational realities that determine whether a framework can be acted upon. She insists that a result is only complete when it can be stated in terms a policy committee can evaluate, and only published when the mathematics fully supports the claim.

At IADU, Valkonen directs the scientific and strategic programme of a division whose scope covers portfolio optimisation, systemic risk theory, decision theory under ambiguity, climate and energy policy, and central banking applications. She sets research priorities, oversees the division's external engagements with sovereign institutions, and leads IADU's consulting work in the areas of monetary policy design, macro-prudential regulation, and optimal fiscal management.