Alan Taylor

Involvement

Alan M. Taylor is a Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of California, Davis.

He read mathematics at King’s College, Cambridge, and received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. His research spans several areas including international economics, macroeconomics, finance, growth, development, and economic history.

He holds appointments as a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Research Fellow of the Center for Economic Policy Research in London. In 2004 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. In 2009–10 he was named a Houblon-Norman/George Fellow at the Bank of England.

His publications include numerous articles in economics journals, essays on policy and commentary, edited volumes and the books Global Capital Markets: Integration, Crisis and Growth published by Cambridge University Press (with Maurice Obstfeld), and Straining at the Anchor: The Argentine Currency Board and the Search for Macroeconomic Stability, 1880–1935 published by The University of Chicago Press (with Gerardo della Paolera).

He has been a visitor/consultant/speaker at many public sector organizations including various Federal Reserve Banks, the IMF, World Bank, IDB, BIS, ECB, and the central banks of the UK, China, France, Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Korea, Croatia, Peru, Israel, and Argentina. In the private sector he has served as a Senior Advisor at Morgan Stanley and has been a visitor/consultant/speaker at various asset managers.

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Sovereigns versus banks: Crises, causes and consequences

Article | Oct 18, 2013

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, few would dispute the risks of excessive borrowing. But which debts should one worry about – public or private? This column presents new research on the interplay of public and private debts since 1870 in 17 advanced economies. History demonstrates that excessive private-sector borrowing plays a greater role than fiscal profligacy in generating financial instability. However, when the credit boom collapses, the government’s capacity to alleviate the downturn is limited by the prevailing level of public debt.

When Is the Time for Austerity?

Article | Jul 26, 2013

Recent austerity policies have been guided by ideology rather than research. This column discusses research that reconciles disparate estimates of fiscal multipliers in the literature. It finds that common identification assumptions are problematic. Matching methods based on propensity scores show how contractionary austerity really is, especially in economies operating below potential.

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