I am an Associate Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University. I am also co-director of the SFU Experimental Economics Laboratory, Research Associate of the NBER, Research Fellow for the CEPR RPN in Central Bank Communication, Advisory Council Member for the Society for Computational Economics, and Monetary Policy Institute fellow for the C.D. Howe Institute. I also served as Department Special Advisor to the Bank of Canada from 2018-2019 and 2022 and Visiting Fellow in the Economics Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2022-2023.
My research focuses on the design of monetary policy and central bank communication to manage boundedly-rational expectations and financial decisions. Most of my work involves the implementation of experimental macroeconomies, where I study -- in a controlled laboratory setting -- individual and group decision-making in response to different types of shocks and policies. I also conduct randomized control trials through representative surveys and use more conventional empirical methods to study questions related to the design of central bank communication.
I am particularly interested in how to explain more complex monetary policies that involve history-dependence and make-up strategies to the general public. I also have a series of papers exploring the design of forward guidance and central bank projections. Another branch of my work explores how people reason through consumption-saving problems and whether their ability to optimize can be improved through effective tools and education.
These projects have been funded by various institutions and programs including the Bank of Canada, the National Science Foundation, the Sury Initative for Global Finance and International Risk Management, SSHRC-SFU Institutional Grants, as well as SSHRC Insight Development and Insight Grants.
Working Papers
The effects of communicating inflation uncertainty on household expectations and spending
with Olena Kostysyhna
[NBER version] [Bank of Canada Staff Working Paper 2023-63 ]
The ECB's climate activities and public trust
with Sandra Eickmeier
Toward a holistic approach to central bank trust
with Sandra Eickmeier
Dynamic optimization meets budgeting: Unraveling financial complexities
with Guidon Fenig
Why don't history dependent monetary policies work?
with Olena Kostysyhna and Jing Yang
Escaping Secular Stagnation with Unconventional Monetary Policy
with Ryan Rholes
Macroeconomic literacy and expectations
with Michael Mirdamadi
Expectations and monetary policy:
Experimental evidence [Appendix]
with Oleksiy Kryvtsov
Selected work in progress (drafts available upon request)
“Dissecting Heaping in Response Data: Causal Evidence on the Roles of Complexity and Uncertainty
” with Michael McMahon and Ryan Rholes
“Do prices reveal information about dividends in asymmetric sequential asset markets?” with Rosemarie Nagel
Publications
[2024] Is monetary and fiscal policy conflict that dire?
with Jeremy Kronick
Accepted,
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control
with Ryan Rholes
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 143, 104460.
[2021] Central Bank Communication That
Works: Lessons from Lab Experiments
with Oleksiy Kryvtsov
[2021] Coordinating
expectations through central bank projections
with Fatemeh Mokhtarzadeh
[2021] Should
central banks communicate uncertainty in their projections?
with Ryan Rholes
[2018] Deflating asset price bubbles with leverage constraints and monetary policy
with Guidon Fenig and Mariya Mileva
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 155, 1-27.
[2017] Stabilizing expectations at the zero lower bound: Experimental evidence
with Jasmina Arifovic
Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 82, 21-43.
[2017] Distributing scarce jobs and output: experimental evidence on the dynamic effects of rationing
with Guidon Fenig, Experimental Economics, 20(3), 707-735.
[2015] Do Expectations and Decisions Respond to Monetary Policy? Journal of Economic Studies, 42(6), 1047-1062.
* Special Issue in Experimental Macroeconomics
[2014] Does Money Illusion Matter?: Comment
with Abel Winn, American Economic Review, 104(3):1047-1062.
“Experiments in Macroeconomics”, Vol. 17, Research in Experimental Economics, 109-137.
Refereed policy publications
[2022] Crossed Wires: Does Fiscal and Monetary Policy Cooordination Matter?
with Jeremy Kronick
Media coverage: Financial Post, MNI
[2021] The Case for Raising the Bank of Canada's Inflation Target
with Shannon Wells
[2014] Recent Developments in Experimental Macroeconomics
with Robert Amano and Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Bank of Canada Review, Autumn 2014, 1-11.
Non-economics refereed publications
Wood, M.D., West, N.C., Sreepada, R. Loftsgard, KC., Jordan, I., Petersen, L. Whyte, S.D., Lauder, G.R.,
Portales-Casamar, E., and Görges, M.
JMIR Perioperative Medicine, 5(1), e4234.
Current projects
“Neofisherian vs. New Keynesian Expectations” with Marieh Azizirad and Lucas Herrenbrueck