Economic analysis
What I do
I have studied how economies work, in macroeconomic and monetary theory and in microeconomic theory, including capital controls and exchange rates, capital flows, business cycles, trade, and the economics profession itself. Below, to help you judge whether I fit your project: my selected work in this field, the methods and tools I would bring to it, my advising and outreach, and my review and teaching. If I do, the Connect page says how to start.
Selected work
Academic journals, chapters, and policy writing
Peer-reviewed articles
"Financial Regulations and Price Inconsistencies across Bitcoin Markets," with Sofia Vivanco. Information Economics and Policy.
Every bitcoin is identical, so a lasting price gap between markets must come from the markets themselves. Across 11 exchanges, together 26% of global bitcoin trade volume, we find that exchanges that do not require customer identification to open an account are more likely to deviate from representative market prices, so know-your-customer rules can have a non-negligible effect on the bitcoin market.
Data. Daily bitcoin prices in US dollars from 11 exchanges, together 26% of global bitcoin trade volume, and a bitcoin price index, June 2014 to July 2015, with 22 characteristics of each exchange collected by hand from its own pages, such as whether it requires identification to fund an account.
Methods. Unit-root tests: DF-GLS, KPSS. Cointegration tests of the law of one price: Johansen trace, Pesaran-Shin-Smith bounds. Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality. OLS with robust standard errors and date fixed effects, regressing each exchange's price deviation on its characteristics.
Book chapters
"Digital Currencies and Central Banks," a chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Technological Finance.
I distinguish digitized currency, digital currency, and distributed ledger technology, set out a taxonomy of six digital currency types, and examine what they mean for central banks: privacy, centralized against decentralized issuance, competition between monies, programmable money, and monetary policy.
Federal Reserve publications
"The Potential Impact of Decentralized Virtual Currency on Monetary Policy" (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute, Annual Report).
What electronic money is (any money, currency, or asset not held in physical form, including representations of a sovereign currency or claims on a real-world good) and what decentralized virtual currency could mean for monetary policy.
Newsletters
"The Job Market for Non-Tenure Track Academic Economists," with Chris Roark. CSWEP News, Issue II, 2022.
Using the AEA's Universal Academic Questionnaire and its Job Openings for Economists postings, we show how the composition of economics departments has changed and how demand for non-tenure-track faculty has grown since the 2008 financial crisis.
Working papers/work in progress
"Bitcoin Reveals Exchange Rate Manipulation and Detects Capital Controls"
The data used to detect currency manipulation and capital controls are low-frequency, costly, lagged, and possibly mismeasured. I show that bitcoin prices, once adjusted for bitcoin-market-specific effects, approximate unofficial exchange rates at a daily frequency, and so reveal both whether a distortion exists and how large it is, including short interventions that would otherwise go undetected. The result also confirms that bitcoin is used to get around capital controls.
Data. Daily transaction-weighted bitcoin prices for 17 currencies on four exchanges, June 2014 to September 2015, with official exchange rates.
Methods. Bitcoin-implied exchange rates, adjusted for bitcoin-market trends using the euro as the benchmark. Cointegration tests of each bitcoin rate against the official rate, Johansen trace and Pesaran-Shin-Smith bounds, to detect capital controls. Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality. Validation against the Chinn-Ito capital-openness index and the IMF's exchange-rate regime classification.
"The Composition of the Allocation Puzzle through Time"
The allocation puzzle is the positive correlation between growth and capital outflows across developing countries. I split capital outflows into private savings, public debt, and international reserve flows, and follow each from the start of a growth episode. The private-savings correlation leads the start of growth, the public and reserve correlations lag it, and the correlation for total outflows disappears after twenty years. None of the proposed solutions matches these findings.
Data. Net foreign assets from Lane and Milesi-Ferretti, converted to constant international dollars with Penn World Table prices; international reserves from the IMF and public debt from the World Development Indicators; productivity built from the Penn World Table; the Chinn-Ito openness index and foreign aid as controls. 36 countries with an identified growth start and twenty years of data.
Methods. A modified growth-acceleration rule, after Hausmann and co-authors, dates the start of each productivity growth episode. Cross-sectional regressions of each capital-flow component on productivity growth, year by year, from five years before the start to twenty years after.
Resting
"Re-evaluating Stylized Business Cycle Facts for Developed and Developing Countries"
Business cycle statistics are usually computed on cycles of two to eight years, a window set by Burns and Mitchell from US data. I date business cycles country by country and find longer cycles, 35 to 66 quarters for developed countries and 28 to 59 for developing ones. Re-estimating the stylized facts on these windows narrows the volatility gap between developed and developing countries and changes the cyclicality of government spending.
Data. Quarterly real GDP from the OECD, with consumption, government spending, imports, and exports, for the United States and other countries including Korea, Mexico, and South Africa; 1985 to 2011 (Mexico from 1993).
Methods. A simplified Bry-Boschan turning-point procedure, checked against NBER dates for the United States. Christiano-Fitzgerald band-pass filtering on each country's own cycle window, then volatility, correlation, and relative standard deviations.
Resting
"The Effect of Income Inequality on Import Prices"
Earlier studies find that higher income inequality in an importing country lowers the unit value of its imports, and changes both the value of trade and the mark-up on identical goods, in either direction. I build a monopolistic-competition model of trade with income-based price discrimination that reproduces all three findings. Each consumer chooses the variety to buy, so high inequality leads richer consumers to buy more varieties at higher prices and poorer consumers fewer varieties at lower prices. Simulated, it captures about half of the observed link between inequality and trade value.
Data. Product-level US exports to all trading partners from UN Comtrade; population, GDP per capita, and the income share of the top 40% from the World Development Indicators; distance, borders, and language from CEPII; the Rauch index to pick differentiated goods. 55 countries.
Methods. A heterogeneous-firm trade model with non-homothetic preferences, calibrated by minimum distance over a grid of resale-constraint values. Trade barriers estimated by gravity from trade shares. Log-linear regressions of trade value, quantity, and unit value on inequality, with product fixed effects and errors clustered by destination.
Resting
"Seeking Teachers: Changes in US Academic Economics Department Jobs," with Christopher J. Roark.
Resting
"A Guide to the U.S. Academic Economics Job Market for Teaching-Focused Jobs," with Melanie Fox, Ben Harrell, Nakul Kumar, Daniel J. Lee, and Allison Luedtke.
Resting
Talks and presentations
Central banks and international institutions
- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, workshop on the financial stability implications of new technology: "How Global Is the Cryptocurrency Market?"
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
- De Nederlandsche Bank: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
- FinTech DC, at the IMF, Washington
Academic conferences
- American Economic Association: "How Have Cryptocurrency Participants Changed?"; "Cryptocurrencies As a New Global Financial Asset"
- Royal Economic Society: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
- Western Economic Association: "How Global Is the Cryptocurrency Market?"; "Financial Regulations..."; "The Effect of Income Inequality..."
- Southern Economic Association: "Bitcoin Reveals..."; "Cryptocurrencies, Stablecoins, and Central Bank Digital Currency" (panelist, online)
- Eastern Economic Association: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
- Midwest Macroeconomics Meeting: "Bitcoin Reveals..."; "The Effect of Income Inequality..."
- Money, Macro and Finance Conference: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
- International Trade and Finance Association: "How Global Is the Cryptocurrency Market?"; "Bitcoin Reveals..."
- Society for Economic Measurement: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
- Liberal Arts Macroeconomics Workshop: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
University seminars
- Lafayette College: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
- Hobart and William Smith Colleges: "Bitcoin Reveals..."
Policy and industry forums
- Monetarium 2, Washington
- DEconomy, Seoul
- The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance's launch of its Global Cryptoasset reports, hosted by CME Group, Chicago
- EconVue: "Stablecoins: The View from Chicago" (panelist)
Economics profession
- Southern Economic Association and the Robert Morris University Teaching Economics Conference: "Seeking Teachers: Changes in US Academic Economics Department Jobs"
Reports, projects, and applications
Reports
"3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study", for the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
How the cryptoasset industry changed after the 2nd study in 2018, from data on 280 companies in 59 countries across exchanges, payments, custody, and mining.
Read the report · Media coverage: Cointelegraph, Asia Times, Bitcoin News, Cryptopotato, Crypto.news, Crowdfund Insider.
"2nd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study", for the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
Survey data from more than 180 cryptoasset companies and individuals in 47 countries on four industry segments: mining, exchanges, storage, and payments. Among its estimates, the top six proof-of-work cryptoassets use between 52 and 111 TWh of electricity a year.
Read the report · Media coverage: Bloomberg, Cointelegraph, FXStreet, Forbes Italia, CoinGape, Crowdfund Insider.
"Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report: Global Operations, Sentiment, and Energy Use", for the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.
A survey of 49 digital mining firms, headquartered in 16 jurisdictions and operating in 23 countries, which together held 48% of the Bitcoin network's hashrate. It reports how the industry operates, how miners see the market, and the energy they use and its environmental impact.
Read the report · Media coverage: The Block, CryptoSlate, The Energy Mag, BeInCrypto, Sustainability Online, Crowdfund Insider.
Consulting reports
- Co-authored a 150-page report on the macroeconomic, monetary, and fiscal-stability effects of a central bank digital currency, for a client's central bank digital currency project.
Methods and tools
Models and computational simulation
- Computational modeling: models solved and simulated numerically. The macroeconomic models are micro-founded: dynamic general equilibrium models in which households and firms optimize, solved for steady states and transition paths. Techniques include:
- Policy simulation in general equilibrium: dynamic general equilibrium models, built and simulated in MATLAB, that trace a policy change through interest rates, exchange rates, and the rest of the economy. Used in: a client's central bank digital currency project, on the effects of CBDC adoption on interest rates and exchange rates.
- Programming macroeconomic models: dynamic general equilibrium models programmed in MATLAB, Dynare, or Python: consumption and savings with the Euler equation; Solow and neoclassical growth; real business cycles and international real business cycles; and cash-in-advance, money-in-utility, overlapping-generations, and Baumol-Tobin models of money, with seigniorage. Used in: The Elements of Economic Analysis III; Economic Policy Analysis.
- Policy experiments with steady states and transition paths: lump-sum and proportional taxation, optimal taxation and government debt, social security, unemployment insurance, seigniorage, and the central bank's commitment problem, solved in MATLAB. Used in: Economic Policy Analysis.
- Heterogeneous-firm models and calibration: a Melitz trade model with non-homothetic preferences, Pareto productivity, and income-based price discrimination, solved, simulated, and calibrated by minimum distance over a grid of parameter values, for 55 countries. Used in: The Effect of Income Inequality on Import Prices.
- Bayesian learning and dynamic programming: a growth model of a small open economy, built in MATLAB: beliefs about the components of TFP updated by a Kalman filter, TFP components estimated by GMM, and the model solved by value-function iteration on belief grids. Used in: "Learning about Growth" (second place, Hardy Third Year Paper Competition, University of Minnesota).
- Stylized models: simplified models with closed-form solutions, to identify the channels through which a policy or a shock changes an outcome. Set as homework, practice, or exam problems in: Principles of Macroeconomics; The Elements of Economic Analysis I; The Elements of Economic Analysis II; The Elements of Economic Analysis III; International Monetary Systems; Economic Policy Analysis; International Trade; Macroeconomics; Risk and Benefits of Digitized Money and Assets. Past applications include:
- Output, money, and growth: aggregate demand and aggregate supply; the money market; the Solow-Swan model and growth accounting.
- Consumers, firms, and markets: consumer theory, from utility maximization and the Slutsky decomposition to expected utility; producer theory; general equilibrium of endowment and production economies; and Cournot, Bertrand, and Stackelberg oligopoly.
- Payments and money demand: cash versus cards in a Baumol-Tobin model; a fall in money demand traced through prices, interest rates, and the exchange rate; a shift from the bolívar to bitcoin in Venezuela; a money-in-utility model with CES preferences.
- Exchange rates and capital flows: interest parity with crypto as a currency converter; triangular arbitrage among the Turkish lira, Tether, and the US dollar; purchasing-power parity in where bitcoin mining locates; the trilemma as digital money weakens capital controls.
- Exchange rates and the balance of payments: balance-of-payments accounting; spot and forward exchange rates and the returns on domestic and foreign assets; interest parity and the asset-market model of the exchange rate; the current account; real exchange rates and purchasing-power parity; the path of the nominal exchange rate after permanent and temporary changes in inflation and the money supply; pegs, capital flight, and a country's net wealth by currency.
- Runs and taxes: a Diamond-Dybvig run at FTX; runs and deposit insurance; tax incidence on crypto miners.
- International trade: the Ricardian, specific-factors, and Heckscher-Ohlin models; free movement of labor; economies of scale and monopolistic competition; and trade barriers, from tariffs to subsidies and dumping.
Data and measurement
Data construction and validation
- Reconciling prices across sources: daily bitcoin prices from 11 exchanges, compared with a reference price to measure each exchange's deviation. Used in: Financial Regulations....
- Collecting what no database holds: 22 characteristics of each exchange, such as its customer-identification rules, gathered by hand from the exchanges' own pages (used in Financial Regulations...), and one day's trading volume for every pairing, on every exchange, of the 50 largest cryptocurrencies.
- Matching to official benchmarks: bitcoin prices in 52 currencies matched to official exchange rates from the IMF, BIS, FRED, and a commercial database, with 33 currencies kept.
- Validating a new measure: bitcoin-implied exchange rates in 17 currencies, checked against the Chinn-Ito capital-openness index and the IMF's exchange-rate regime classification. Used in: Bitcoin Reveals....
- Building productivity and capital-flow series: total factor productivity from output, labor, and a constructed capital stock, and net foreign assets split into private savings, public debt, and reserve flows. Used in: The Composition of the Allocation Puzzle through Time.
- Building capital stocks: growth accounting with perpetual-inventory capital stocks, using Caselli-Feyrer initial stocks and Penn World Table data. Used in: The Composition of the Allocation Puzzle through Time.
- Dating growth accelerations: a modified Hausmann et al. rule, 77 episodes in 36 countries. Used in: The Composition of the Allocation Puzzle through Time.
- Dating business cycles from quarterly output: turning points found country by country and checked against NBER dates. Used in: Re-evaluating Stylized Business Cycle Facts for Developed and Developing Countries.
- Merging trade, distance, and income-distribution data: product-level trade with distance, language, and income-share data, after dropping extreme unit values and products sold to fewer than five destinations, with the Rauch and BEC classifications merged. Used in: The Effect of Income Inequality on Import Prices.
- Classifying job postings: 9,600 Job Openings for Economists postings classified by keyword in Stata, and a representative economics department built from the AEA's Universal Academic Questionnaire tables, with Christopher J. Roark. Used in: Seeking Teachers; The Job Market for Non-Tenure Track Academic Economists.
- Working across standard sources: Penn World Table, World Development Indicators, OECD, IMF, the external-wealth positions of Lane and Milesi-Ferretti, product-level trade from UN Comtrade with CEPII distance and language data, and exchange-level and aggregated cryptoasset prices.
Econometrics
- Unit-root tests (do shocks fade?): DF-GLS, augmented Dickey-Fuller, Phillips-Perron, KPSS. Used in: Financial Regulations... (DF-GLS, KPSS); Bitcoin Reveals... (augmented Dickey-Fuller, KPSS).
- Cointegration and error-correction models (do series move together?): Johansen trace, Pesaran-Shin-Smith bounds, VECM. Used in: Financial Regulations...; Bitcoin Reveals....
- Granger causality (which series is a leading signal?): Toda-Yamamoto, from a vector autoregression. Used in: Financial Regulations...; Bitcoin Reveals....
- Fixed-effects regression (what explains differences across series?): OLS with fixed effects and robust standard errors. Used in: Financial Regulations....
- Band-pass filtering (how long is a business cycle?): Christiano-Fitzgerald, on country-specific cycle lengths. Used in: Re-evaluating Stylized Business Cycle Facts for Developed and Developing Countries.
- Gravity regressions (what drives trade values and prices?): trade value, quantity, and unit value, with product fixed effects and errors clustered by destination; Eaton-Kortum estimation of trade barriers. Used in: The Effect of Income Inequality on Import Prices.
- Event-time regressions (what changes around a growth episode?): cross-sectional regressions around growth episodes, in eight specifications. Used in: The Composition of the Allocation Puzzle through Time.
- Random-walk tests (do prices follow a random walk?): Jarque-Bera, Box-Pierce portmanteau, runs, and variance-ratio tests.
Computational research tools
- AI research workflows: LLM research pipelines; multi-agent orchestration with Git-based handoffs; source-grounded LLM assistants; Claude Code and Codex.
- Programming and documents: MATLAB, Dynare, and Stata; Git; LaTeX; Python and other languages through LLM-directed development.
Advising and outreach
Leadership and service
Chair and advisory roles
- Board of Directors, International Trade and Finance Association, three two-year terms.
- Serve as Board Director for Monetary Policy and Executive Committee Advisor at NABE Chicago.
- Advised Trinity University undergraduate International Economics and General Economics majors, four to eight a semester, and supervised the theses of 31 University of Chicago economics MA students.
Organizing
- Panel organizer, DEconomy panel on central bank digital currencies (Seoul).
- Organized two cryptocurrency sessions for the International Banking, Economics and Finance Association at the Western Economic Association International Annual Conference.
- Co-taught the MA Thesis Development Workshop for the macroeconomics and finance specialization, and organized the fall macro MA thesis workshop, at the University of Chicago.
Guest lectures
- Undergraduate: Money and Banking (University of Chicago); Principles of Macroeconomics (The Ohio State University); Economics Senior Seminar (Pitzer College); a course in economics (University of Chicago).
In the media
- Live programming: BBC, NPR, WBEZ Chicago, Texas Public Radio, Scholars' Circle.
- Podcasts: BBC, CBC, Made in Tech.
- News and public media: BBC, The Telegraph, Chicago Tribune, Asia Times.
- Financial and policy press: Bloomberg, Bloomberg Government, Nikkei, Forbes Italia, The Street, Global Finance, FXStreet, Finance Magnates, Experian.
- Trade press: CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, The Block, The Register, Bitcoin News, CryptoSlate, Breaker Mag, BeInCrypto, Crowdfund Insider, CoinGape, Crypto.news, Cryptopotato, The Energy Mag, Sustainability Online, BlockchainGov Newsletter.
- Opinion pieces: CoinDesk, CSWEP News.
Review and teaching
Evaluation and review
Refereeing
- Refereed work for 8 journals and 2 research funders: Computational Economics, Eastern Economic Journal, Economics Bulletin, Economic Theory, International Review of Economics Education, Journal of International Economics, Journal of International Money and Finance, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance; the Czech Science Foundation and the Swiss National Science Foundation.
- Served on 7 conference selection committees at 4 academic conferences: the Crypto Asset Lab Conference (three times), Tokenomics (twice), the International Trade and Finance Association Annual Conference, and the AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting (three CSWEP sessions).
Selecting and editing
- Reviewed the survey analysis in three Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance reports, the 2nd and 3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Studies and the Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report, for correctness and completeness.
- Reviewed textbooks for their publishers: Cowen and Tabarrok, Modern Principles of Economics; Williamson, Macroeconomics (pre-revision); Sachs and McCord, Principles of Economics and Global Sustainable Development (prospectus).
- Interviewed candidates for economics lecturer positions at the University of Chicago.
Teaching and evaluating student work
- Graded the work of more than 4,400 student enrolments, more than 500 in writing-intensive courses and honors and MA theses.
- Served as examiner and grader for the University of Chicago's undergraduate economics placement exam.
- Reviewed 259 applications to the University of Chicago's MAPSS economics MA program.
Recognition
- Second place, Hardy Third Year Paper Competition, University of Minnesota, for “Learning about Growth,” with Andy Glover.
- Invited and funded attendee, Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute, “Developing the Next Generation of Economic Models of Climate Change.”
- Trinity University Junior Faculty Sabbatical Leave ($50,000).
- R.R. Witt Faculty Fellowship, Trinity University.
Courses taught
Except where marked co-taught, I designed and taught these courses, from determining the curriculum to creating the homework and exam problems, and grading them or overseeing their grading. For more details see my academic website.
Ph.D. (topical)
Risk and Benefits of Digitized Money and Assets, Collegio Internazionale Ca' Foscari.
A course on the theoretical models that examine new risk channels from central bank digital currencies, stablecoins, and crypto markets. It assumes first-year graduate macroeconomics and no prior knowledge of crypto markets, banking, or monetary policy.
Topics. Central bank digital currencies and bank stability; their macro-risk consequences; stablecoins and financial risk; open-economy currency competition; and crypto monetary theory in three frameworks, positive and normative. Each topic is taught through its core papers.
Master's (core)
- MA Thesis Development Workshop, University of Chicago, macroeconomics and finance specialization, co-taught.
Undergraduate (core)
Principles of Macroeconomics, University of Chicago, Trinity University, and University of Minnesota.
By way of theory and policy applications, covers the major domestic and international macroeconomic issues: the determination of income and output, inflation, unemployment, and growth; money, banking, and the Federal Reserve; federal spending, taxation, and deficits; and international trade, exchange rates, and the balance of payments. It assumes no prior economics and no mathematics beyond algebra.
Topics. GDP and cross-country convergence; the Solow model and growth accounting; real and nominal GDP; inflation and aggregate demand; trade; unemployment and business cycles; the aggregate demand and supply model and schools of thought; fiscal policy, debt, and taxation; and monetary policy, interest rates, and inflation.
Assessment. Homework, in-class quick-response exercises, and quizzes at Chicago; homework, midterms, and a final at Trinity. Topic summaries and practice problems written for the course.
- Principles of Microeconomics, Trinity University.
The Elements of Economic Analysis I, University of Chicago.
Develops the economic theory of consumer choice: optimal choices given incomes, preferences, and prices, how they change, and measures of consumer welfare, used to evaluate taxes and subsidies. It assumes multivariable calculus.
Topics. Scarcity constraints; preferences and indifference curves; utility maximization; duality; income and substitution effects and the Slutsky decomposition; three measures of the impact of a price change; income and time allocation; allocation across time; expected utility and insurance; general equilibrium of an endowment economy; and Pareto optimality and the social planner.
Assessment. Homework, in-class quick-response exercises, and quizzes. Homework tests analysis rather than recall.
The Elements of Economic Analysis II (Intermediate Microeconomics), University of Chicago.
A continuation of Elements I: producer choice, markets with one or a few suppliers, factor markets and the distribution of income, and elementary general equilibrium and welfare economics.
Topics. Production functions and costs; cost minimization and profit maximization; firm and industry supply; partial equilibrium and market interventions; general equilibrium of a production economy; the welfare theorems and the social planner; externalities; monopoly; game theory; Bertrand, Cournot, and Stackelberg oligopoly; and public goods and asymmetric information.
Assessment. Homework, in-class quick-response exercises, and quizzes. Homework tests analysis rather than recall.
The Elements of Economic Analysis III (Intermediate Macroeconomics), University of Chicago.
An introduction to macroeconomic theory and policy that extends the earlier methods to dynamic general equilibrium models of an economy with firms, consumers, and governments. It includes beginning MATLAB programming.
Topics. Savings, consumption, and the Euler equation; bond and equity markets; economic growth, the Solow model, the golden rule, and the neoclassical growth model; macroeconomic measurement; consumption-labor decisions and unemployment; business cycles and real business cycles; money, interest rates, and cash-in-advance; monetary policy and expectations; and seigniorage.
Assessment. Homework, in-class quick-response exercises, and quizzes. Homework tests analysis rather than recall.
- Intermediate Macroeconomics, University of Minnesota.
Undergraduate (topical)
International Monetary Systems, University of Chicago and Trinity University.
Monetary policy across international markets, global banking markets, and optimum currency areas, and their effects on business cycles and economic development. Students analyze data and policy with simplified theoretical models. The course is writing intensive.
Topics. Exchange rates and foreign-exchange arbitrage; covered and uncovered interest parity; money, interest, and exchange rates; twin deficits and balance-of-payments crises; saving, investment, and the current account, from the accounting identity to a micro-founded model; exchange-rate policy; and central bank digital currencies and cryptocurrencies.
Assessment. Homework that tests analysis rather than recall, in-class quick-response exercises, tests, and policy reports. Each class meeting has its own topic summary and practice problems, written for the course.
Economic Policy Analysis, University of Chicago.
Uses the theoretical, numerical, and empirical methods of the core sequence to analyze macroeconomic policy across taxation, government debt, unemployment, and monetary policy. Its monetary topics start from the three functions of money. The course is calculus- and programming-based (MATLAB or Python).
Topics. Taxation, optimal government debt, and social insurance; money as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account; price misperceptions; seigniorage and government debt; monetary policy and interest rates; and the central bank's commitment problem.
Assessment. Homework and three policy analysis briefs, two from set prompts and one on a fiscal or monetary policy of the student's choosing. All slides, handouts, prompts, and questions are written for the course.
International Trade, Trinity University.
The economic theory of international trade, trade restrictions, and policy, with practice in reading and understanding published sources of data and analysis. The course is writing intensive.
Topics. Measuring welfare; relative supply and demand; trade supply and demand; the Ricardian, specific-factors, and Heckscher-Ohlin models; free movement of labor and immigration; external and internal economies of scale and monopolistic competition; testing classical and new trade theory; trade barriers, classical and under imperfect competition; trade diversion and creation; real-world tariffs and the politics of international agreements; import substitution and export-led growth; export and production subsidies; dumping and non-traditional trade barriers; and offshoring, outsourcing, foreign direct investment, and portfolio investment.
Assessment. Weekly homework, a midterm in two parts (take-home and in class), and a 15-page research paper built through weekly drafts, with an optional presentation. The course grade uses whichever of four weightings of homework, midterm, and paper gives the student the highest grade.
Professional education
Macroeconomics, University of Chicago, as a visiting instructor, for participants who already hold an undergraduate degree.
Introduces participants with minimal macroeconomic background to macroeconomic policy analysis: measurement, why theory is needed for macro policy, and growth, open-economy deficit sustainability, monetary and fiscal policy, unemployment, inflation, and business cycles.
Topics. National accounts and data; long-run growth; the circular flow and the open economy; exchange rates and external debt; money and monetary policy; loanable funds and fiscal policy; inflation; unemployment; and business cycles.
Assessment. Group in-class exercises and four group problem sets, using data from open repositories. AI tools are allowed when the tool and prompt are disclosed.