The New York Fed’s Research and Statistics Group combines leading-edge academic research with rigorous policy analysis in an intellectually dynamic and collegial environment.

This brochure offers an overview of our research and policy work and describes the distinctive culture and resources of the Group. It also details the responsibilities of our six functions, identifies our current staff of economists, and highlights the economists’ research interests and recent publications.

A First-Rate Research Community
Our strongest asset is our more than sixty Ph.D. economists, a concentration of expertise larger than that of most university economics departments. Recognized as leading researchers in their fields, these individuals bring breadth and depth to their work in macroeconomics, banking, payments, finance, applied microeconomics, and international economics.

Our economists have compiled an impressive record of publishing in the most highly regarded economics and finance journals. Since 2001, nearly forty articles by New York Fed economists have appeared in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Review of Financial Studies. Our economists’ work is also extensively represented in the top field journals and in other important outlets.

The New York Fed is an ideal place to conduct financial markets research. It gives economists the opportunity to interact on a regular basis with the Bank’s Markets Group, where trading on behalf of the Federal Reserve System occurs, and with Bank Supervision staff– while working in a rigorous academic environment. Tobias Adrian, MIT Capital Markets Function

New York Fed economists complement their publishing activity by serving on a variety of editorial boards. Current and recent assignments include:

Our economists are also highly visible in the profession, presenting research at preeminent colleges and universities worldwide. They have given papers at the American Economic Association, the American Finance Association, the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the world’s central banks.

The New York Fed is a great place for economists who want to combine their research with policy work. It provides an opportunity to interact with the most renowned academics in the world through the Visiting Scholars Program and seminars, as well as access to the policy decision-making process. Mary Amiti, London School of Economics and Political Science International Research Function

A First-Year Plan Focusing on Research and Publication
The Research Group recognizes how important it is for young economists to get their research agenda under way as quickly as possible. For new Ph.D. hires, the primary goal in the first year is to produce research and publish in the major journals. To that end, we have designed a first-year plan that allows new economists to devote 90 percent of their time to developing publishable work. We provide additional support in the form of state-of-the-art computing capabilities, ready access to a wide range of economic data, and the assistance of highly trained research associates.

In the first year, new Ph.D. economists also familiarize themselves with the New York Fed’s policy missions by interacting with economists in their area and with other professionals Bankwide. They may contribute to a team working on a policy issue or help prepare a briefing on economic developments for the Bank’s president and senior officers.

My research here has been enriched by work on real-world policy issues. In fact, some of my best research ideas have come directly from questions raised by colleagues in Bank Supervision and from issues that have surfaced during policy debates. Beverly Hirtle, MIT Financial Intermediation Function

A Collegial Culture
The environment here fosters an extraordinary degree of collaboration and exchange. Economists regularly work together on policy initiatives, and this interaction encourages a lively team spirit that can be missing in academic departments. In addition, economists frequently coauthor articles and make joint presentations.

Adding to the collegial nature of the Research Group is the lack of a divide between senior and junior staff; there is virtually no hierarchy setting new economists apart from their more experienced colleagues.

The Research Group’s collegial atmosphere leads to a remarkable amount of discussion and collaboration across fields. In addition, the seminar series and visitors program are first rate and provide excellent opportunities for interaction with other economists. Todd Keister, Cornell Money and Payments Studies Function

An Environment Where Ideas Flourish
The Research Group benefits greatly from the New York Fed’s proximity to top-tier universities. Over the past few years, the Group has cosponsored a number of conferences with institutions such as Columbia, Harvard, NYU, and Princeton. Fed economists frequently give seminars at these and other institutions.

The New York Fed offers an unusually collegial environment for young economists to develop their research. I don’t know of another institution that provides the same level of support–in the form of attention from senior colleagues, time for research, promotion of one’s work, access to high-level data sets, and the assistance of full-time research associates. Rebecca Hellerstein, UC Berkeley International Research Function

Teaching Activity
Economists also enjoy the opportunity to teach while on staff—whether they take a leave of absence from the Bank or teach part time while working here. Recent teaching activities include:

Tobias Adrian		Princeton; Seoul National University
Gauti Eggertsson		Yale
Stefano Eusepi		NYU
Andrea Ferrero		NYU
Michael Fleming		NYU
Linda Goldberg		Princeton
Andrew Haughwout		Princeton
Rebecca Hellerstein		NYU
James McAndrews		Pennsylvania
Donald Morgan		Columbia; NYU
Paolo Pesenti		NYU; Princeton; University of Oslo
Simon Potter		NYU
Til Schuermann		Columbia; Wharton
Andrea Tambalotti		Columbia; NYU
James Vickery		Princeton; NYU
Zhenyu Wang		Columbia
Tanju Yorulmazer		NYU

Economists looking for a dynamic and exciting work environment will be glad they joined the New York Fed. Each day brings new economic questions to answer and challenges to address, with potentially far-reaching implications. Ayşegül Şahin, University of Rochester Macroeconomic and Monetary Studies Function

Sabbatical Program
Our sabbatical program offers economists opportunities to concentrate fully on their own research. The program enables individuals pursuing a specific plan of study to devote up to 100 percent of their time to qualifying work.

Under the program, economists with four or more years of service at the Bank can apply to take between two and twelve months of leave. They receive 90 percent of their salary while on the first six months of leave and 75 percent during the next six months. Economists can also work part time while on sabbatical if the employment contributes to their professional development. For example, an economist can hold a visiting position at a university or other research institution, with limited teaching or other responsibilities.

Economists have taken advantage of the program to work at such institutions as the Bank of Portugal, Columbia University, New York University, and the University of Lausanne.

The New York Fed is an ideal workplace for young economists who want to conduct academic research and gain valuable insight into economic policy decision-making processes and the workings of financial markets. The Bank provides excellent resources in the form of ample research time, computing facilities, and opportunities to interact with an outstanding group of colleagues and distinguished academic visitors. Emanuel Moench, Humboldt University, Berlin Capital Markets Function

Visiting Scholars Program
To help maintain a stimulating and supportive environment for staff economists, the Research Group regularly invites economists from major research institutions to be visiting scholars at the Bank. The visitors present their own work and make themselves available to discuss our economists’ current research.

Visiting scholars in 2009-10 include:

It’s a great experience working in the Research Group. You have the ability to put your own academic research to work, which stimulates participation in the policy debate and the development of new ideas. Argia Sbordone, Chicago Macroeconomic and Monetary Studies Function

A Gateway to Academia
The scope and seriousness of our research environment are reflected in our relationship with academia.

The Group has hired many of its more senior economists from university economics and finance faculties. In turn, a number of our economists have gone on to accept faculty positions at prestigious colleges and universities, including Boston College, Brandeis, Columbia, Dartmouth, New York University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Chicago, the University of Stockholm, and the University of Virginia.

What I find especially rewarding here is that my theoretical and empirical research can have important implications for the Bank’s policy work. Furthermore, my exposure to the policymaking process shapes my own contributions to the policy debates in my academic field. João Santos, Boston University Financial Intermediation Function

Seminars
The Research Group actively encourages participation in seminars and conferences. Ample funds are available for economists to travel to conferences in the United States and abroad. The Bank also provides travel support for those wishing to work with coauthors outside the Bank.

In addition, we offer a seminar series that attracts a broad group of distinguished speakers. We present several seminars a week—a clear indication of our commitment to the series.

Selected seminars in 2009 included:

• “Regression Models with Mixed Sampling Frequencies,” Elena Andreou, University of Cyprus; Eric Ghysels, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill



• “Letting Different Views about Business Cycles Compete,” Paul Beaudry, University of British Columbia



• “Credit Traps,” Effi Benmelech, Harvard University



• “Child Care Choices and Children’s Cognitive Achievement: The Case of Single Mothers,” Raquel Bernal, Universidad de los Andes



• “Inside and Outside Liquidity,” Patrick Bolton, Columbia University



• “The Maturity Rat Race,” Markus Brunnermeier, Princeton University



• “Activity-Based Valuation of Bank Holding Companies,” Charles Calomiris, Columbia University



• “A Simple Robust Link between American Puts and Credit Protection,” Peter Carr, New York University



• “Bank Competition and Economic Stability: The Role of Monetary Policy,” Sylvain Champonnois, University of California at San Diego



• “Do Investment Banks Have Skill? Performance Persistence of M&A Advisors,” Alex Edmans, University of Pennsylvania



• “Currency Misalignments and Optimal Monetary Policy: A Reexamination,” Charles Engel, University of Wisconsin at Madison



• “Crash Risk in Currency Markets,” Xavier Gabaix, New York University



• “Granger Causality Tests with Mixed Data Frequencies,” Eric Ghysels, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill



• “Central Banking in the Credit Turmoil: An Assessment of Federal Reserve Practice,” Marvin Goodfriend, Carnegie Mellon University



• “The Run on Repo and the Panic of 2007-2008,” Gary Gorton, Yale University



• “Katrina’s Children: A Natural Experiment in Peer Effects from Hurricane Evacuees,” Scott Imberman, University of Houston



• “A Quantitative Assessment of the Decline in the U.S. Saving Rate and the Current Account Balance,” Ayse Imrohoroglu, University of Southern California



• “What Lies Beneath: A Look Inside CLO Collateral,” Victoria Ivashina, Harvard University



• “Will the U.S. Bank Recapitalization Succeed? Lessons from Japan,” Anil  Kashyap, University of Chicago



• “Monopsony in the Low-Wage Labor Market? Evidence from Minimum Nurse Staffing Regulations,” Jordan Matsudaira, Cornell University



• “Teardown Clusters: GMM Spatial Probit with Sample Selection,” Daniel McMillen, University of Illinois at Chicago



• “Trade Booms, Trade Busts, and Trade Costs,” Christopher Meissner, University of California at Davis



• “Rational Expectations and Robust Control: Observational Equivalence Results for Misspecified Monetary Dynamics,” Anna  Orlik, New York University



• “Securitization, Disclosure, and Liquidity,” Marco Pagano, University of Naples Federico II



• “How Do Households Respond to Income Shocks?” Fabrizio Perri, University of Minnesota



• “Potential and Natural Output,” Giorgio Primiceri, Northwestern University



• “Macroeconomic Effects of Financial Shocks,” Vincenzo Quadrini, University of Southern California



• “International Job Search: Mexicans in and out of the U.S.,” Silvio Rendon, State University of New York at Stony Brook



• “The Economic and Real Estate Outlook,” Kenneth Rosen, University of California at Berkeley



• “Bank Lending during the Financial Crisis of 2008,” David Scharfstein, Harvard University



• “The Effect of Judicial Bias in Chapter 11 Reorganization,” Antoinette Schoar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology



• “Securitization and Distressed Loan Renegotiation: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis,” Amit Seru, University of Chicago



• “Unstable Banking,” Andrei Shleifer, Harvard University



• “The Impact of the U.K. New Deal for Lone Parents on Benefit Receipt,” Jeffrey Smith, University of Michigan



• “Dynamic Corporate Capital Stocks: Cross-Sectional and Intertemporal Stock Return Patterns,” Matthew Spiegel, Yale University



• “Policy Announcements and Welfare,” Christian Stoltenberg, University of Amsterdam



• “Risk Management Framework for Hedge Funds: Role of Funding and Redemption Options on Leverage,” Suresh Sundaresan, Columbia University



• “Repeated Circular Migration: Theory and Evidence,” Kevin Thom, New York University



• “The Dynamics of International Trade Invoicing,” Cédric Tille, Graduate Institute of International Studies



• “What’s News in Business Cycles,” Martin Uribe, Columbia University



• “Can Time-Varying Risk of Rare Disasters Explain Aggregate Stock Market Volatility?” Jessica Wachter, University of Pennsylvania



• “The Bear’s Lair: Indexed Credit Default Swaps and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis,” Nancy Wallace, University of California at Berkeley



• “Sex Ratios and Savings Rates: Evidence from ‘Excess Men’ in China,” Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia University



• “New Keynesian versus Old Keynesian Government Spending Multipliers,” Volker Wieland, Goethe University of Frankfurt



• “Labor Market Pooling, Outsourcing, and Labor Contracts in Chamberlinian Regions,” David Wildasin, University of Kentucky



• “Dynamic Bank Runs,” Wei Xiong, Princeton University



• “A Note on Liquidity Risk Management,” Motohiro Yogo, University of Pennsylvania


• “The Cyclical Component of U.S. Asset Returns,” Stanley Zin, Carnegie Mellon University

The New York Fed is unique in its emphasis on academic research and policy research. Ample resources—including excellent computing support, the assistance of dedicated research associates, multiple seminar series, and a rich visitors program—provide an ideal research environment. In addition, the opportunities for relating academic research to practical policy and real-world applications make the experience here all the more exciting and fruitful.

Rajashri Chakrabarti, Cornell
Microeconomic and Regional Studies Function

Conferences
Over the past few years, the Research Group has hosted many well-received research conferences addressing a diverse set of topics, including central bank liquidity tools, disclosure requirements and market discipline of financial firms, monetary policy and the money market, policy options for affordable housing, inflation-indexed securities and inflation risk management, and strategies for improving the measurement of economic and financial market performance.

The commitment to academic research at the Bank is outstanding.
This commitment is reflected in the amount of time economists can devote to pure research as well as in the numerous seminars, distinguished visiting professors, and exceptional colleagues here.

David Skeie, Princeton
Money and Payments Studies Function

A Rich Computing Environment
The Research Group’s state-of-the-art Research Computing Environment (RCE) offers economists a broad spectrum of technology resources, the ability to take advantage of real and financial data series, and electronic access to academic journals. Dedicated information technology and automation support services are available to meet researchers’ individual needs.

The main elements of the research ­computing environment include:

• A functional network infrastructure. Our network resources accommodate a full range of research activities. The flexible Research Accessible Network (RAN) supports econo­mists’ academic work and collaboration by providing convenient access to outside resources through the Internet as well as to Research Group resources from outside the Bank. The Bank’s secure internal network can be used to conduct confidential and classified policy work as well as to access e-mail, internal Federal Reserve System websites, and productivity applications and utilities.
• A high-performance computing environment of Linux clusters. More than 200 processors allow for parallel computing in Research, complemented by additional Solaris and Linux servers. Application servers support parallel and serial work in SAS, MATLAB, STATA, Fortran, and other standard and specialized econometric resources.
• Robust data-storage solutions. Our Research Storage Area Network—housing 20 terabytes of fully protected data, and growing— supports analysis of large data sets on the Bank’s network.
• Versatile workstation options. Windows, Linux, and Mac desktop and laptop solutions can be combined to meet economists’ research needs. A dual-workstation option affords simultaneous access to the Bank network and the RAN. A variety of peripherals—including dual-head monitors, external hard drives, high-end color printers, and secure USB drives—complement these workstation features.
• Access to software resources. Numerous econometric software packages and modules are available, including MATLAB, STATA, Mathematica, SAS, the R programming language, EViews, and GAUSS. Technical word-processing packages, such as Scientific Workplace and WinEdt, are fully supported.
• Data. A full range of economic and financial data is on hand—much of which might not be available in many academic environments.
• Convenient remote access. An array of automated tools streamline Research work at home or while traveling; BlackBerry devices are available for mobile communication.

Extensive Professional Support
A superb group of administrative, computer, editorial, design, and library professionals help economists meet their research objectives.

Joining this group of support personnel are roughly forty research associates, who offer skilled and energetic assistance in gathering data, conducting statistical analysis, and preparing materials for presentations.

Our RAs are typically recent college graduates who intend to pursue a Ph.D. in economics. Indeed, since 2001, twenty-two RAs have gone on to top-five Ph.D. programs while another ­twenty-five have entered top-twenty programs. Among this group, seven RAs have been awarded National Science Foundation fellowships.

With its emphasis on research and its breadth of supporting professionals, combined with its key role in formulating economic policy, the New York Fed provides a research setting like no other. It is a great place for economists to conduct independent research, derive new ideas from current policy issues, and see those ideas inform policymaking at the highest level.

Tanju Yorulmazer, NYU
Financial Intermediation Function

Wide Internet Exposure
Personal web pages on the New York Fed’s site heighten economists’ visibility in the academic, policy, and business communities.

The pages feature the economist’s biography and field of interest as well as links to curricula vitae, publications, and working papers. These pages are among the most visited on the Research Group’s website.

What strikes me most about the Bank is the extraordinary degree of intellectual excitement here. My colleagues work on the most challenging and topical policy issues and are eager to debate ideas. Stimulating seminars and presentations are offered nearly daily, and visitors from New York University, Princeton, and Columbia contribute richly to the discourse.

Marco Del Negro, Yale
Macroeconomic and Monetary Studies Function

Census Research Data Center
The Research Group, on behalf of the New York Fed, helped establish a U.S. Census Bureau Research Data Center in New York City. The Bank is a founding member of the consortium that supports the facility, joining other leading universities and research organizations in New York State.

The presence of the Research Data Center in the New York area supports an important strand of empirical research in the Bank and the region. At the Data Centers, researchers who have completed a rigorous project review process can access in a secure facility selected confidential economic and demographic microdata gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The New York Fed’s consortium membership entitles Research Group economists to use the facility to conduct research with no additional lab fees or the need to travel.