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Professor Joshy Z. Easaw

Economics Section, Cardiff Business School

Cardiff University, Aberconway Building

Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3E

Email address: EasawJ1@cardiff.ac.uk

Short Bio:

Educated at the universities of Oxford, Essex, Glasgow and Leicester. Previously held tenured (permanent) positions at the universities of Bath and Swansea.

Teach courses at undergraduate and postgraduate (Masters and PhD) levels in Macroeconomics, Development Economics, Financial Economics and Political Economy.

Successfully completed nine PhD supervision in the areas of macroeconomic, political economy and development economics. My PhD students are currently employed in academia (University of Manchester, Taiwan and China) and as professional economist (World Bank).

Between 2007-08 I was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. In the academic year 2023-24, I was Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, University of Bologna. 

I'm a founding member of Cardiff University Business School (CARBS) Race Equality Committee and currently the decolonisation of curriculum and research lead. 

Research interests:

i. Macroeconomic Theory and Modelling:

• • Bounded rationality

  • Microfoundations of how households form subjective macro (or aggregate) expectations:

  • Professional forecasters’ inattentiveness

  • Households forming expectations through ‘social learning’ in a spatial context.

  • Spatial volatility and its impact on convergence. 

ii. Political Economy and Development Economics:

• • Political Economy:

    • 1. Government expenditure cycles around elections, and

      2. Psychology of Economic voting: how voters form perceptions about policy-makers competence (monetary and fiscal policy) taking a bounded rationality approach, such as using their sentiments and ‘news’.

      3. The dual role of democracy and optimal size of government.  

  • Development Economics:

1. The inequality-growth nexus focusing on an institutional approach - specifically the interaction between political (democracies) and economic (property rights enforcement) . 

2. Impact of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade on the contemporary growth and its transmission via institutions. 

3. Historical Slave Prices; Trends and its determinants.  

Recently, I gave a talk on the Economic Impact and Legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Bath Abbey during their slavery (modern and historical) awareness week (November 2023): https://youtube.com/live/ciWvIq2x6FU?feature=share 

Google Scholar Site 

Recent and Selected Publications:

• 1. with Grimme, C., (2024) 'The Relationship between Aggregate Uncertainty and Firm-Level Uncertainty' Oxford Economic Papers, forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpae004 

  2. with Angelini, G and Constantini, M., (2023)"Estimating uncertainty spillover effects across euro area using a regime dependent VAR model", Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics,  https://doi.org/10.1515/snde-2021-0107

  3. with Chou J., and Minford P., (2023) "Does inattentiveness matter for DSGE modelling? An empirical investigation", Economic Modelling, 118, article number: 106076. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2022.106076

  4. with S. Leppala, (2023), "Democracy, State Capacity and Public Finance", Economic Inquiry, 61(2), pp. 301-321., https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.13115

  5. with Y. Fang and S. Heravi, (2023) "Using Polls to Forecast Popular Vote Share for US Presidential Elections 2016 and 2020: An Optimal Forecast Combination Based on Ensemble Empirical Model", Journal of the Operational Research Society, 74(3), pp. 905-911., 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2022.2101951 

• 6. with R. Golinelli, (2022), "Professionals Inflation Forecasts: The Two Dimensions of Forecaster Inattentiveness." Oxford Economic Papers Volume 74, Issue 3, July 2022, Pages 701–720 : https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpab012 

  7. with Saeed Heravi, (2021) "Public opinion as Nowcast: consistency and the role of news uncertainty". Journal of Mathematical Sociology. Vol 45. Issue. 2 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0022250X.2020.1732371

• 8. with Huw Dixon and Saeed Heravi, (2019) "Forecasting inflation gap persistence: do financial sector professionals differ from non-financial sector ones?.International Journal of Finance and Economics, 25(3), pp. 461-474. (10.1002/ijfe.1762)

  9. with James M, Holmes, Colin Ash, (2019) "David J. Smyth: An Appreciation of His Work" Journal of Macroeconomics, Volume 60, June 2019, Pages A1-A8, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmacro.2019.03.005

  10. with Mossay, P, (2015) “Households Forming Macroeconomic Expectations: Rational Inattentive Behavior with Social Learning” BE Contributions to Macroeconomic,  Vol. 15, No. 1 (Jan 2015) 

  11. with R. Golinelli, M. Malgrini, (2013)  “What Determines Households Inflation Expectations? Theory and Evidence from a Household Survey”, European Economic Review, 61 (July), pp. 1 - 13 (Lead Article).

  12. with Amendola, A and Savoia  A. (2013)  “Inequality in Developing Economies: the Role of Institutional Development” Public Choice,  Vol. 155, Issue 1-2, pp 43-60.

  13. (2010) “It's All 'Bad' News!  Voters' Perception of Macroeconomic Policy Competence” Public Choice, Vol. 145, No. 1- 2, pp. 253-264. 

  14. with A. Mackay and A. Savoia, (2010), “Property Rights, Democracy and Inequality: A Survey of Recent Literature”, World Development , Vol. 38(2), pp. 142-154.

  15. with S. Heravi, (2009) “Are Households’ Forecast Rational and Useful? Evidence from the BHPS”.  Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 28, pp. 667-680. 

  16. with Abbot A. and Xing, T,(2008) “Does More International Trade Result in Highly Correlated Business Cycles?”, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Vol. 110, Issue 2, pp. 403-417.

  17. . with A. Ghoshray, (2007) “Confidence or Competence? Do Presidencies Matter for   Households’ Subjective Preferences?” European Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 23 (4), pp. 1025-1037.  

  18. with E. Clark, (2007) “Optimal Access Pricing for Natural Monopoly Networks when Costs are Sunk and Revenues are Uncertain” European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 178 (2), pp. 595-602

  19. with A. Ghoshray, (2006) “Agent-based Learning in ‘Islands’ and ‘Sticky Information”: An Explanation for the Persistence of Real Effects”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol 38, Number 1, pp. 263 - 268.

  20. with D. Garratt, (2006) “General Elections on Government Expenditure Cycles: Theory and Evidence from the UK”, European Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 22(2), pp. 292-306

  21. with S. Heravi, (2004) “Evaluating Consumer Sentiments as Predictors of UK   Household   Consumption Behavior. Are they Accurate and Useful?” ,  International Journal of Forecasting, Vol. 20, pp 671-681.

  22. with Garratt D., (1999), “UK Government Expenditure and Electoral Security in the 1980s: A Non-Linear Analysis”, Economics Letters, 62(3), pp. 287-292.

 Awards and Research Projects:

• • Awarded Leverhulme Trusts Research Fellowship: October 2007 to September 2008 ‘Microfoundations of how households form subjective macroeconomic expectations: The role of news’.

  Recent Working Papers and Presentations:

• Easaw, Joshy & Golinelli, Roberto, 2014. “Inflation Expectations and the Two Forms of Inattentiveness,” Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2014/21, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.

• Easaw Joshy, 2015. "Dual Role of Democracy" Presentation Cardiff Political Philosophy Seminar Series, 30th April 2015

• Easaw, Joshy, Heravi, Saeed and Dixon, Huw, 2015, "Professionals’ Forecast of the Inflation Gap and its  Persistence" Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2015/13, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.

• Easaw, Joshy, 2015, "Household Forming Inflation Expectations: Why Do They ‘Overreact’?" Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2015/14, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.

• Easaw, Joshy, Golinelli, Roberto and Heravi, S, 2016, "Inflation Expectations, Inattentiveness and Uncertainty", presentation International Forecasting Symposium, June 2016, Spain.

  • Angelini, Giovanni & Costantini, Mauro & Easaw, Joshy, 2018. "Uncertainty and spillover effects across the Euro area," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2018/15, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.  

  • Easaw, Joshy & Grimme Christian, 2021, "The Impact of Aggregate Uncertainty on Firm-Level Uncertainty" CESifo Working Paper Series.

  • Easaw, Joshy & Ghoshray, Atanu, 2023, " On the trend and variability of 18th century British Transatlantic slave prices"  E2023/29 Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.