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, a
Monetary Policy Institute Research Fellow and Monetary Policy Council Member within the C.D. Howe Institute. I also served as Department Special Advisor to the Bank of Canada from 2018-2019 and 2022 and Visiting Economist in the Economics Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2022-2023, and as an Advisory Council Member for the Society for Computational Economics from 2020-2023.
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 and supported by various institutions and programs including Bank of Canada, Deutsche Bundesbank, National Science Foundation, Sury Initative for Global Finance and International Risk Management, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, 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 Working Paper 32939] [Bank of Canada Staff Working Paper 2023-63 ] [NBER 2023 SI Behavioral Macro]
Beyond technocracy: Toward a holistic approach to central bank trust
with Sandra Eickmeier
History-dependent monetary policy - less is more
with Olena Kostysyhna and Jing Yang
[NBER Working Paper 30530] [Bank of Canada Staff Working Paper 2022-33 ]
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)
“Effective Lower Bound, Inflation Expectations, and Optimal Monetary Policy: Evidence from the Laboratory” with Olivier Armantier and Damjan Pfajfar
“Looking Through Supply Shocks” with Olena Kostyshyna and Jing Yang
“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
[Accepted] The ECB's climate activities and public trust
with Sandra Eickmeier
[NBER Working Paper 33103] [CAMA Working Paper 62/2024]
In media: Bloomberg
[2026] Dynamic optimization meets budgeting: Unraveling financial complexities
with Guidon Fenig
[2025] Is monetary and fiscal policy conflict that dire?
with Jeremy Kronick
In media: Financial Post
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.
with Ryan Rholes
[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
[2017] Stabilizing expectations at the zero lower bound: Experimental evidence
with Jasmina Arifovic
[2017] Distributing scarce jobs and output: experimental evidence on the dynamic effects of rationing
with Guidon Fenig
[2015] Do Expectations and Decisions Respond to Monetary Policy?
Special Issue in Experimental Macroeconomics
[2014] Does Money Illusion Matter?: Comment
Research in Experimental Economics, 17, 109-137.
Edited special issues
with Herbert Dawid and Cars Hommes
[2025] Introduction to the special issue in honor of Jasmina Arifovic
with John Duffy, Janet Jiang, Daniela Puzzello, and Isabelle Salle
