Research & Publications

Do Large-Scale Asset Purchases Improve the Fiscal Policy Transmission in a Crisis?, M.Phil.: 2017

• • Focusing on the role of unconventional monetary policy in a crisis, I examined the transmission mechanism of fiscal policy in a New-Keynesian model with financial frictions.

  • Calculated the size of the fiscal policy multiplier for two scenarios: first, where only fiscal stimulus was injected to counteract the recession; second, where both fiscal and unconventional monetary policies were implemented.

  • The multiplier at impact was slightly bigger when fiscal stimulus was conducted in conjunction with large-scale asset purchases; however, standalone fiscal policy performed slightly better over the longer horizon.

The Gains to US GDP from a Doing Business Score of 100, Ajay Shah's Blog: July 11, 2016

• Examined if a country can achieve growth by implementing large pro-business reforms and estimating the amount of growth that is possible from such reforms.

• We used non-parametric regressions to identify the relationship between business climate and GDP per person.

• Our nonparametric estimate showed that gains from achieving a score beyond 90 were increasing. The out of sample estimate for the US, using the nonparametric fit, showed an annual growth of 2.22% for the next 20 years.

Does Quantitative Easing Improve the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy Transmission in a Liquidity Trap?, M.Sc. Dissertation: 2015

• Examined the transmission channels of monetary policy (with a special focus on financial market variables) using vector autoregression analysis (VAR). I added different financial market variables to a simple three-variable VAR (consisting of price, output and monetary policy instrument).

• The impulse response function analysis showed that the monetary policy (i.e., quantitative easing) did have a positive impact on the two key macroeconomic variables, i.e., aggregate output and prices, through stock price and interest rate channels.