In St. Louis Fed Report, Economists Discuss New Research in Plain English

ST. LOUIS – The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has released exclusive interviews with U.S. and international economists explaining their recent macroeconomic research in clear language so that the general public may understand how their work can inform and shape economic policy.

The economists presented research papers at the 39^th Annual Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Fall Conference, hosted by the bank’s Research division in October. This is the second year in which the St. Louis Fed has published interviews with presenters about their papers in a special report, Connecting Policy with Frontier Research.

“In addition to finding ways to connect the research world with the policy world, the St. Louis Fed strives to connect academic research with a nonacademic audience,” said St. Louis Fed President James Bullard. “Our goal is to explain in lay terms why the research is important, what implications it has for policy and what it means for people and the economy overall.”

The publication also includes messages from three other St. Louis Fed economists: Research Director Christopher Waller and conference organizers William Dupor, assistant vice president, and Yongseok Shin, research fellow.

David Andolfatto, a vice president and economist at the St. Louis Fed, interviewed the following economists on their respective papers:

• Fernando Alvarez, University of Chicago – “Mandatory Disclosure and Financial Contagion”
• Mark Bils, University of Rochester – “Resurrecting the Role of the Product Market Wedge in Recessions”
• V.V. Chari, University of Minnesota – “On the Optimality of Financial Repression”
• John Kennan, University of Wisconsin, Madison – “Spatial Variation in Higher Education Financing and the Supply of College Graduates”
• Ross Levine, University of California, Berkeley – “Competition and Bank Opacity”
• Iourii Manovskii, University of Pennsylvania – “Demand Stimulus and Inflation: Empirical Evidence”
• Giuseppe Moscarini, Yale University – “Did the Job Ladder Fail After the Great Recession?”
• Casey Mulligan, University of Chicago – “The New Full-time Employment Taxes”
• Gianluca Violante, New York University – “What Shifts the Beveridge Curve? Recruitment Effort and Financial Shocks”

For the interviews, the conference volume and the full conference agenda, please see: https://www.stlouisfed.org/connecting-policy-with-frontier-research/2014