Fall 2019 Schedule

 

Schedule: Fall 2019
DATE TOPIC SPEAKER(S)
Oct 11 A unified model of learning to forecast George Evans
Oct 18 Macroeconomics: Theory and/or Practice Bruce McGough
Oct 25 The aggregate and distributional effects of Urban Transit Infrastructure. Shan Zhang
Nov 1 The econometrics of DSGE models Jake Thompson
Nov 8 Voluntary Informality in an Equilibrium Search Model with Heterogenous workers Hoa Duong
Nov 15 David Evans
Nov 22 Boundedly Rational Decision Making in Continuous-Time Chandler Lester
Nov 29 THANKSGIVING BREAK
Dec 6 Xiang Li

 

Winter 2019 Schedule

Schedule: Winter 2019
DATE TOPIC SPEAKER(S)
Jan. 18  Stochastic Continuous-Time Models Chandler Lester
Jan.  25  Canceled 
Feb. 1  Alex Li
Feb. 8  Social Learning  Bruce McGough
Feb. 15
Machine Learning: An Applied Econometric Approach
By: Sendhil Mullainathan and Jann Spiess
John Morehouse
Feb. 22
The Impact of Machine Learning on Economics
By: Susan Athey
 Chandler Lester
March 1
Regularized Regression 
The Elements of Statistical Learning pg. 57-79
 Youssef Ait Benasser
March 8 Tree Methods  Alex Li
March 15  Boosting Jeremy Piger

Pushing on a String: US Monetary Policy Is Less Powerful in Recessions

Authors: Silvana Tenreyro and Gregory Thwaites

Abstract:

We investigate how the response of the US economy to monetary policy shocks depends on the state of the business cycle. The effects of monetary policy are less powerful in recessions, especially for durables expenditure and business investment. The asymmetry relates to how fast the economy is growing, rather than to the level of resource utilization. There is some evidence that fiscal policy has counteracted monetary policy in recessions but reinforced it in booms. We also find evidence that contractionary policy shocks are more powerful than expansionary shocks, but contractionary shocks have not been more common in booms. So this asymmetry cannot explain our main finding.

Fall 2018 Schedule

 

Schedule: Fall 2018
DATE TOPIC SPEAKER(S)
October 5  Alex Li
October 12  “Pushing on a String: US Monetary Policy Is Less Powerful in Recessions”  Thomas Stockwell
October 19 Canceled
October 26  “Determinacy and E-Stability of Nominal GDP Targeting Interest Rate Rules”  Ben Brennan
November 2 Cory Briar
November 9  Interest Rate Uncertainty as a Policy Tool”  Kemal Ozhan
November 16  “The value of bulk information in the age of search engines” Grant McDermott
November 23 Thanksgiving Break
November 30 Chandler Lester

 

Spring 2018 Schedule

 

Schedule: Spring 2018
DATE TOPIC SPEAKER(S)
April 6

Canceled

April 13

Canceled

April 20 Using price-level targeting to escape the zero bound on nominal interest rates Seppo Honkapohja
April 27 Canceled
May 4

 E-stability and various learning themes in
forward-looking linear models

Nigel McClung
May 11

Chapters 6 & 7 of Evans and Honkapohja’s Expectations and Learning in Macroeconomics

(Stochastic Recursive Algorithms)

May 18 Infinite-horizon learning  Erin Hunt
May 25 Select papers on learning and monetary policy  TBA
June 1 Taking learning models to the data TBA
June 8 Experimental and behavioral macro TBA

 

Fall 2017 Schedule

 

Schedule: Fall 2017
DATE TOPIC SPEAKER(S)
October 6

“Life-cycle Horizon Learning, Social Security Reform, and Uncertainty”

“Performance of Simple Interest Rate Rules Subject to Fiscal Policy”

Erin Hunt

 

Nigel McClung

October 13

“Present Bias, Preference Heterogeneity, and Wealth Inequality over the Life-Cycle”

Tristan Nighswander
October 20 “Cyclicality of U.S. Discretionary Fiscal Policy” Jean Falconer
October 27 Canceled
November 3

“Performance of Simple Interest Rate Rules Subject to Fiscal Policy”

Nigel McClung
November 10 “Life-cycle Horizon Learning, Social Security Reform, and Uncertainty” Erin Hunt
November 17 “Present Bias, Preference Heterogeneity, and Wealth Inequality over the Life-Cycle” Tristan Nighswander
November 24 Thanksgiving
December 1 “Cyclicality of U.S. Discretionary Fiscal Policy” Jean Falconer