Staff

Professor Evans's first full-time academic appointments were at the University of Stirling, and then at Stanford University from 1981-1987. In 1983-4 he visited the London School of Economics and then in 1987 he joined the Economics Department at the L.S.E., where he remained until 1993. During 1993-4 he was the George Watson and Daniel Stewart Professor of Political Economy at the University of Edinburgh. Since September 1994 he has been Professor at the University of Oregon, where he holds the John B. Hamacher Chair of Economics and is College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor. In October 2007 he was appointed Part Time Professor of Economics and Finance, University of St. Andrews.

Theoretical and empirical topics in macroeconomics including tests for speculative bubbles, the effect of sectoral imbalance on unemployment, the decomposition of aggregate output into trend and cycle, and the formulation of theoretical models of endogenous fluctuations.

A major emphasis of his research has been expectational stability and learning in stochastic, dynamic models with multiple equilibria. One application has been the role of expectations and learning in optimal monetary policy design and in the interaction of monetary and fiscal policy. Other recent research includes new technical results on the existence of adaptively stable sunspot equilibria, with applications to monetary models, an examination of the importance of heterogeneous expectations, and applications of learning theory to finance.

A recent project, which is ongoing, has looked at macroeconomic policy in the presence of a liquidity trap (the zero interest lower bound). This work has shown that learning dynamics can be destabilizing when the economy is subject to large negative expectations shocks that place the economy into a deflation trap region, and that in some cases fiscal policy may be required to return the economy to the stability region.

Other current research looks at eductive stability in RBC models with infinite-horizon decision making, combining anticipated fiscal policy with adaptive learning, models of asset price bubbles and crashes, and shadow-price learning.

Professor Evans collaborates with economists from the UK, France, Finland and the United States.

• "Coordination on Saddle Path Solutions: the Eductive Viewpoint - Linear Multivariate Models" (with Roger Guesnerie), Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 124, 2005, 202-229.
• "Monetary Policy, Indeterminacy and Learning" (with Bruce McGough), Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Vol. 29, 2005, 1809-1840.
• "Intrinsic Heterogeneity in Expectation Formation" (with William A. Branch), Journal of Economic Theory, Vol. 127, 2006, 264-295.
• "A Simple Recursive Forecasting Model" (with William A. Branch), Economics Letters, Vol. 91, 2006, 158-166.
• "Monetary Policy, Expectations and Commitment" (with Seppo Honkapohja), Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Vol. 108, 2006, 15-38.
• "Adaptive Expectations, Underparameterization and the Lucas Critique" (with Garey Ramey), Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 53, 2006, 249-264.
• "Are Hyperinflationary Paths Learnable" (with Klaus Adam and Seppo Honkapohja), Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Vol. 30, 2006, 2725-2748. (download)
• "The E-Correspondence Principle" (with Seppo Honkapohja), Economica, Vol. 74, 2007, 33-50.
• "Stable Sunspot Equilibria in a Cash-in-Advance Economy" (with Seppo Honkapohja and Ramon Marimon), The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, 2007, Vol. 7: Iss.1 (Advances), Article 3.
• "Model Uncertainty with Endogenous Volatility" (with William A. Branch), Review of Economic Dynamics, Vol. 10, 2007, 207-237.
• "Optimal Constrained Interest-rate Rules" (with Bruce McGough), Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol. 39, 2007, 1335-1356.
• "Policy Interaction, Learning and the Fiscal Theory of Prices" (with Seppo Honkapohja), Macroeconomic Dynamics, Vol. 11, 2007, 665 - 690.
• "Monetary Policy, Judgment and Near-Rational Exuberance" (with James Bullard and Seppo Honkapohja), 2008, American Economic Review. Vol. 98, 1163-1177.
• "Can Perpetual Learning Explain the Forward Premium Puzzle?" (with Avik Chakraborty), 2008, Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 55, 477-490.
• "Liquidity Traps, Learning and Stagnation" (with Eran Guse and Seppo Honkapohja), European Economic Review, Vol. 52, 2008, 1438 - 1463.
• "Monetary Policy, Endogenous Inattention, and the Volatility Trade-off" (with William A. Branch, John Carlson and Bruce McGough), Economic Journal, Vol. 119, 2009, 123-157.
• "Learning and Macroeconomics," (with Seppo Honkapohja), Annual Review of Economics, Vol. 1, 2009, 421-449.
• "Robust Learning Stability with Operational Monetary Policy Rules" (with Seppo Honkapohja), in Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, ed. by Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel and Carl Walsh, 2009, Central Bank of Chile.
• "Expectations, Learning and Monetary Policy: An Overview of Recent Research" (with Seppo Honkapohja), in Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, ed. by Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel and Carl Walsh, 2009, Central Bank of Chile.
• "Anticipated Fiscal Policy and Adaptive Learning" (with S. Honkapohja and K. Mitra), Journal of Monetary Economics.Vol. 56, 2009, 930-953.
• "Implementing Optimal Monetary Policy in New Keynesian Models with Inertia" (with Bruce McGough), The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics (Topics), Vol. 10: Iss. 1, 2010.
• "A Model of Near-Rational Exuberance," (with James Bullard and Seppo Honkapohja),Macroeconomic Dynamics.Vol. 14, 2010, 166-188.
• "Generalized Stochastic Gradient Learning" (with Seppo Honkapohja and Noah Williams), International Economic Review, Vol. 51, 2010, 237-262.
• "Representations and Sunspot Stability" (with Bruce McGough), forthcoming Macroeconomic Dynamics.
• "Asset Return Dynamics and Learning" (with William Branch), forthcoming Review of Financial Studies.
• "Learning about Risk and Return: a Simple Model of Bubbles and Crashes" (with William Branch), forthcoming American Economic Journals: Macroeconomics.

• Associate Editor, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control
• Associate Editor, Macroeconomic Dynamics
• Board of Advisors, Journal of Economic Surveys
• Advisory Board, Centre for International Economics and Finance, University of Cambridge

• SIRE PhD Workshop Series in Advanced Quantitative Methods on Economics and Finance, St  Andrews, March 2010.
• Visiting Scholar/Consultant, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, June 2008, July 2009.
• Visiting Scholar, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, July 2008.
• Visiting Scholar, Institute for Monetary and Economic Statistics, Bank of Japan, Tokyo, April 2007.
• Professeur Invité, Université Paris X - Nanterre, France, September 2007.

• University of Rotterdam Conference on "Expectations, Asset Bubbles and Financial Crises," September 2010.
• University of Oslo Workshop on Modern Economic Forecasting, May 2010
• Swiss National Bank Conference, "Financial Markets, Liquidity, and Monetary Policy," Zurich, September 25-26, 2009.
• IMF Conference on Macroeconomic Policy and Policy Challenges Following Financial Meltdowns, Washington DC, April 3, 2009.
• Bank of Japan, IMES, Conference on "Frontiers in Monetary Theory and Policy," May 28-9, 2008.
• Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Conference on "Monetary Policy and Asset Markets," February 22, 2008.
• Central Bank of Chile, Invited talk (with S. Honkapohja), "Expectations, learning and monetary policy: an overview of recent research," Second Summit Meeting of Central Banks on Inflation Targeting, November 2007.
• IMF Institute Seminar on "Monetary Policy and Adaptive Learning," Wash. DC, August 2007.
• Bank of England, Invited talk (with S. Honkapohja), Chief Economists' Workshop, May 2006.

• Keynote address, 40th Money, Macro and Finance Research Group annual conference, Birkbeck College, University of London, Sept. 2008

• National Science Foundation, Principal Investigator, "Learning and the Planing Horizon: Applications to Economic Fluctuations, Asset prices and Policy," 2010-2013.