Research

Working Papers

Aggregate Implications of Heterogeneous Inflation Expectations: The Role of Individual Experience (Latest Draft) (with Hiroshi Toma and Esteban Verdugo) Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 23-04 

The Transmission of International Monetary Policy Shocks on Firms' Expectations (with Serafin Frache, Rodrigo Lluberas and Javier Turen) Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 23-01  

Indirect Consumer Inflation Expectations: Theory and Evidence (with Ina Hajdini, Edward Knotek II, Robert Rich, John Leer and Raphael Schoenle) Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 22-23


Low Passthrough from Inflation Expectations to Income Growth Expectations: Why People Dislike Inflation (Latest Draft) (with Ina Hajdini, Edward S. Knotek II, John Leer, Robert Rich and Raphael Schoenle) Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 22-21

Coverage: Bloomberg, CNN, Brookings

The Geographic Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks (with Juan Herreño) (New Draft) Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Papers No. 22-15  

Export-Led Decay: The Trade Channel in the Gold Standard Era (with Bernardo Candia) (New Draft) Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Papers No. 21-11 

Publications

Work in Progress

The Expectations of Others (with Ezequiel Garcia-Lembergman, Ina Hajdini, John Leer and Raphael Schoenle)

Based on a framework of memory and recall that accounts for social networks, we provide conditions under which social connectedness amplifies or mitigates expectations. We provide evidence for these predictions using a newly constructed large dataset that merges a uniquely dense survey of US consumers' inflation expectations with information on individuals' social network connections across counties. A 1 percentage point increase in the social network-weighted inflation expectations in other counties is associated with a 0.29 percentage point increase in individual inflation expectations. This link is stronger for groups that share common demographic characteristics, such as gender, income or political affiliation: a 1 percentage point increase of network-weighted inflation expectations of individuals sharing the same gender in other counties is associated with a 0.754 percentage point rise in individual inflation expectations.

The Effect of Local Economic Shocks on Local and National Elections (with Juan Herreño and Matias Morales)

Do voters react to local economic conditions? We answer this question using data from U.S. elections during two historically important events. First, the abandonment of the gold standard by the UK and other countries in 1931, which deteriorated the economic conditions of export-oriented counties in the U.S. Second, the abandonment of the gold standard by the US in 1933, which improved the economic conditions of exporting counties. Exploiting cross-sectional variation, we find significant responses of local voters to both economic shocks. Since these shocks are of different nature -the first outside and the second inside of the government's scope of action- we argue that voters punish and reward incumbents regardless of their "room to maneuver." These results imply a strong feedback from economic conditions to electoral outcomes and a weak role for accountability mechanisms.

Other Publications

Understanding Which Prices Affect Inflation Expectations (with Chris Campos and Michael McMain) Economic Commentary (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland), no. 2022–06 (April)

In Press: NY Times

Indirect Consumer Inflation Expectations (with Ina Hajdini, Edward Knotek II, Robert Rich, John Leer and Raphael Schoenle) Economic Commentary (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland), no. 2022–03 (March)

In Press: WSJ, The Economist