Uncertainty Shocks

AEA/AFA is coming soon next week. According to FiveThirtyEight survey in 2014 from top 17 PhD programs with 308 economics phd candidates, they find that Macro is the top field that most candidates (64, 20.8%) choose as their primary field. Labor ranks second (30, 9.7%) and micro theory (26, 8.4%) is the third. Then I combine similar fields together and get the following results. Applied micro (Labor + IO + Trade + Public (econ+finance)+ Applied + Health + Environment + Education): 30 + 24 + 14 + (12 + 5) + 11 + 9 + 8 + 2= 115 (37.3%) Macro + International Econ: 64 + 2 = 66 (21.4%) Micro + Game + Decision Theory: 26 + 5 + 3 = 34 (11.0%) Financial + Corporate: 24 (7.8%) Development: 24 (7.8%) Econometrics: 14 (4.5%) Behavior + Experimental = 6 + 4 = 10 (3.2%)  History: 7 (2.3%) Unknown field (at least 2 candidates): 14  Now applied micro (covers many different research topics but with similar research approach) is the hot field for economics phd students. Pretty surpris

JPE, one of the top 5 economics journals, celebrates its 125th anniversary and invites the Chicago economics and finance faculty to write the review for their fields. Of course, they mainly focus on the research based on the Chicago School of Economics and their past research. The scholars on this list look like Hall of Famers or All-Star. To name just a few: Time-series in Macro and Finance: Hansen Finance: Fama Labor: Heckman Political: Myerson Behavior: Thaler Experiment: List Banking: Diamond, Kashyap, Rajan Corporate Finance: Vishny, Zingales JPE 125th Paper Photo:  Becker Friedman Institute Flicker

根據 Justin Fox 在《哈佛商業評論》的 文章 和《理性市場的神話》(The Myth of the Rational Market) ，過去的經濟學者較少注意到金融市場對總體經濟的影響性，因此未能察覺此危機的嚴重性。但也並非所有人都忽視，例如《經濟學人》曾 撰文 介紹 Hyman Minsky 在 1996 年過世前，發表過多篇關於金融不穩定性 (financial instability) 研究相關的文章，但在當時並未引起人們注意。 然而在 2008 金融危機過後，總體審慎管制 (macroprudential regulation) 成為央行和學術界的重要議題，國際清算銀行 (BIS) Claudio Borio 定義傳統的個體審慎管制 (microprudential regulation) 是從個別金融機構，由下而上來控制風險，希望能保護個別消費者、投資者。 然而此方式忽略各個金融機構風險有連鎖效應，例如銀行擠兌 (bank runs) 和上述提到快速銷售資產 (fire sales) 的情況。因此在金融危機後，監管單位採取總體審慎管制，由上而下來控制風險，避免多家金融機構同時失控，使得經濟嚴重衰退的情況再次發生。 The central problem of depression-prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes, and has in fact been solved for many decades. — Robert Lucas 雖然聯準會主席 Janet Yellen 在 2017 年 6 月間接受媒體 訪談 ，曾說過有生之年，很難再見到另一次金融危機。然而以研究經濟成長為名的諾貝爾獎得主 Robert Lucas，在 2003 年時曾說過我們已經找到避免經濟大蕭條的方法，但還是在五年後遇到金融海嘯。 Cover Photo：WSJ 2008/9/15 頭版