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I am a passionate monetary or macro-financial economist. My views on economics represent a mix of monetarist and new classical thinking. I strongly believe that economic analysis should be firmly based on certain key assumptions such as market equilibrium, rational behavior, and no-arbitrage conditions. These are classic assumptions that frequently solicit strong criticism. Some criticism is deserved, much however is not (see the discussions and elaborations elsewhere on this site). I emphasize that it is very important to maintain a critical perspective on generally accepted textbook models and academic research. Many economists and observers seem to forget what economic theory is all about. Simple theories can be illustrative and a very useful starting point for discussions, but, unfortunately, students and even academic professionals seem frequently unable to move beyond the textbook caricatures of economic models learned in Econ101. I find that too much economic research is based on simplistic 'straw man' economic models and hypotheses, with insufficient attention to real world institutional details and problems, and inaccurate representations of the many mixed and contradictory results provided by previous literature. To create some order in this confused state of theory and empirics, economics requires 'art' perhaps more than 'science' (see my section on research).

My academic research and teaching interests have always been diverse. Areas I have worked in and continue to follow with interest:

* monetary economics (macroeconomics, monetary policy, financial system)

* macro-finance (interest rates, stock market, other asset prices, market microstructure)

* investment management (portfolio allocation, investment strategies/anomalies, performance measurement)

* risk management (interest rate risk, credit risk, market risk)

My current active interests are:

* long-term inflation forecasts and long-term real interest rates

* stock market fundamental models, earnings expectations, risk premium estimates

* institutional explanations for stock market calendar and mood anomalies

* monetary policy reaction functions, real time data, rate change forecasts

* house price, oil price fundamental models

I particularly enjoy applied empirical research and have a particular interest in seeking out and evaluating explanations for some of the many mixed / contradictory results for economic theories in empirical studies. My working hypothesis is that it is simply too easy to arbitrarily select only the empirical studies with results that fit a particular predetermined view or purpose. Academically, it is much more constructive to try and find logical and consistent explanations for why many empirical results tend to be mixed (across time, across countries, across markets, etc).

I end this introduction with the following cautionary note on scientific method. It is to me an important guide in my travels through the scientific literature and the many complicated debates it contains.

A scientist once trained a flea to jump whenever he rang a bell. Using a microscope, he then anesthetized one of the flea's legs and rang the bell again. The flea still jumped.

The scientist then anesthetized another leg and then rang the bell. The flea still jumped.

Eventually, the scientist anesthetized more and more legs, each time ringing the bell, and each time recording that the flea jumped.

Finally, the flea had only one leg left. When the scientist anesthetized the last leg and rang the bell, he found to his surprise that the flea no longer jumped.

Then the scientist solemnly declared his conclusion, based on irrefutable scientific data: Fleas hear through their legs!

Michio Kaku, Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994 (p. 118)

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