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Research Interests
macroeconomics, growth and inequality, human capital, labor and demographics, informational frictionsSelected Work
“Home Production and Leisure During the COVID-19 Recession”
with Zhixiu Yu
B E Journal of Macroeconomics, April 2021, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 269-306
Related working paper (PDF)
“Imperfect Information Transmission from Banks to Investors: Macroeconomic Implications”
with Nicolás Figueroa and Carlos Ramirez
Journal of Monetary Economics, March 2021, Vol. 118, pp. 87-98
Related working paper (PDF)
“Why Did Rich Families Increase Their Fertility? Inequality and Marketization of Child Care”
with Michael Bar, Moshe Hazan, David Weiss, and Hosny Zoaby
Journal of Economic Growth, December 2018, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 427-463
“The Return to College: Selection and Dropout Risk”
with Lutz Hendricks
International Economic Review, August 2018, Vol. 59, No. 3, pp. 1077-1102
Related working paper (PDF)
“Cash Flows and Credit Cycles”
with Nicolás Figueroa
Journal of Banking & Finance, February 2018, Vol. 87, pp. 318-332
“How Risky is College Investment?”
with Lutz Hendricks
Review of Economic Dynamics, October 2017, Vol. 26, pp. 140-163
“Population Size Effects in the Structural Development of England”
with Stephen Turnovsky
American Economic Journal-Macroeconomics, July 2016, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 195-229
“Gender Wage Gap Accounting: the Role of Selection Bias”
with Michael Bar and Seik Kim
Demography, October 2015, Vol. 52, No. 5, pp. 1729-1750
“The Role of Adult Mortality in the Transmission of Knowledge”
with Michael Bar
Journal of Economic Growth, December 2010, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 291-321
“Demographic Transition and Industrial Revolution: A Macroeconomic Investigation”
with Michael Bar
Review of Economic Dynamics, April 2010, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 424-451
“The Changing Role of Family Income in College Selection and Beyond”
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, Third Quarter 2023
“Where are the college graduates?”
FRED Blog, August 14, 2023
“Are Higher Child Care Wages Affecting the Labor Supply?”
On the Economy, July 11, 2023
“How Child Care Impacts Parents’ Labor Force Participation”
On the Economy, July 10, 2023
“Women’s Evolving Careers Helped Shrink the Gender Pay Gap”
On the Economy, May 16, 2023
“Why do Women Outnumber Men in College Enrollment?”
On the Economy, March 15, 2022
“The Pandemic’s Influence on U.S. Fertility Rates”
On the Economy, November 4, 2021
“The Pandemic Dents College Attendance”
On the Economy, February 22, 2021
“College Freshman Enrollment Drops during Pandemic”
with Devin Werner
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis The Regional Economist, First Quarter 2021
“Home Production Activity during the COVID-19 Shutdown”
with Zhixiu Yu
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis The Regional Economist, Third Quarter 2020
“Causes and Consequences of Student-College Mismatch” (PDF)
with Lutz Hendricks and Tatyana Koreshkova
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper 2022-026B, September 2024
“Lifetime Work Hours and the Gender Wage Gap” (PDF)
with Guillaume Vandenbroucke
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper 2022-025c, September 2024
“Insurance and Inequality with Persistent Private Information” (PDF)
with Alex Bloedel and Vijay Krishna
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper 2018-020E, December 2021
Oksana Leukhina is an economic policy advisor in the Research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which she joined in December 2017. Leukhina is a macro/growth economist. She has made important contributions to the study of the long-run process of economic development, structural transformation, demographic change, and female labor supply. She has also contributed to our understanding of informational frictions in financial markets. Most recently, she has been working on questions pertaining to human capital accumulation in college. Leukhina earned her B.S. in economics, mathematics, and political science from the College of Charleston in 2000 and her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 2005.
Leukhina has published her research in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Monetary Economics, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Journal of Economic Growth, International Economic Review, and Review of Economic Dynamics. She is a Board Member of the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, a system affiliate of Equitable Growth Studies (FRB-New York), and a member of Human Capital and Economic Opportunity at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics at the University of Chicago. She has also served as First VP of the Midwest Economics Association in 2023.
Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, Leukhina held a tenured appointment at McMaster University in Canada. Her previous academic appointments were at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and University of Washington in Seattle. She has been teaching computational macroeconomics at Washington University in St. Louis since 2018.
