Economists

Christopher Otrok

Senior Economic Policy Advisor
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Christopher Otrok is a senior economic policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. He joined the Dallas Fed in 2021.

His research interests include financial crises, international business and financial cycles, and monetary and fiscal policy.

Otrok has been the Sam B. Cook professor of economics at the University of Missouri, a research fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and professor of economics at the University of Virginia. He served as a senior economist on the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President in 2016–17. He has held visiting scholar positions at the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York and Philadelphia.

He was co-editor of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control from 2010 to 2016 and has served a two-year term on the National Science Foundation economics panel.

Otrok received a PhD in economics from the University of Iowa.

Publications

“Asset Pricing Through the Lens of the Hansen-Jagannathan Bound,” with B. Ravikumar, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis Review, vol. 102, no. 3, 2020, pp. 255–69. https://doi.org/10.20955/r.102.255-69.
“On the Cyclicality of Real Wages and Wage Differentials,” with Panayiotis M. Pourpourides, B E Journal of Macroeconomics, vol. 19, no. 1, January 2019. https://doi.org/10.1515/bejm-2017-0047.
“Optimal Capital Controls and Real Exchange Rate Policy: A Pecuniary Externality Perspective,” with Gianluca Benigno, Huigang Chen, Allesandro Rebucci and Eric R. Young, Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 84, December 2016, pp. 147–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2016.10.004.
“Sources of Business Cycles in a Low Income Country,” with Romain Houssa and Jolan Mohimont, Pacific Economic Review, vol. 20, no. 1, February 2015, pp. 125–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0106.12097.
“Specification and Estimation of Bayesian Dynamic Factor Models: A Monte Carlo Analysis with an Application to Global House Price Comovement,” with Laura E. Jackson, M. Ayhan Kose and Michael T. Owyang, Advances in Econometrics, vol. 35, 2015, pp. 361–400. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0731-905320150000035009.
“News Shocks and the Slope of the Term Structure of Interest Rates,” with Andre Kurmann, American Economic Review, vol. 103, no. 6, October 2013, pp. 2612–32. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.6.2612.
“Financial Crises and Macro-Prudential Policies,” with Gianluca Benigno, Huigang Chen, Allesandro Rebucci and Eric R. Young, Journal of International Economics, vol. 89, no. 2, March 2013, pp. 453–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2012.06.002.
“Fiscal Policy in the Aftermath of the Financial Crisis: Introduction,” with Robert Kollmann, Eric M. Leeper and Werner Roeger, Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control, vol. 37, no. 2, February 2013, pp. 365–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jedc.2012.09.011.
“Global House Price Fluctuations: Synchronization and Determinants,” with Hideaki Hirata, M. Ayhan Kose and Marco Terrones, NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, vol. 9, no. 1, 2013, pp. 119–66. https://doi.org/10.1086/669585.
“Global Business Cycles: Convergence or Decoupling?” with M. Ayhan Kose and Eswar Prasad, International Economic Review, vol. 53, no. 2, May 2012, pp. 511–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2354.2012.00690.x.
“Do Credit Shocks Matter? A Global Perspective,” with Thomas Helbling, Raju Huidrom and M. Ayhan Kose, European Economic Review, vol. 55, no. 3, April 2011, pp. 340–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2010.12.009.
“What Are the Driving Forces of International Business Cycles?” with Mario J. Crucini and M. Ayhan Kose, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 14, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 156–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2010.09.001.
“A Model for Monetary Policy Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa,” with Romain Houssa and Radu Puslenghea, Open Economies Review, vol. 21, no. 1, February 2010, pp. 127–45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11079-009-9142-8.
“Understanding the Evolution of World Business Cycles,” with M. Ayhan Kose and Charles H. Whiteman, Journal of International Economics, vol. 75, no. 1, May 2008, pp. 110–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2007.10.002.
“A Generalized Volatility Bound for Dynamic Economies,” with B. Ravikumar and Charles H. Whiteman, Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 54, no. 8, November 2007, pp. 2269–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2007.06.028.
“99 Luftballons: Monetary Policy and the House Price Boom Across U.S. States,” with Marco Del Negro, Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 54, no. 7, October 2007, pp. 1962–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2006.11.003.
“International Business Cycles: World, Region and Country Specific Factors,” with M. Ayhan Kose and Charles H. Whiteman, American Economic Review, vol. 93, no. 4, September 2003, pp. 1216–39. https://doi.org/10.1257/000282803769206278.
“Habit Formation: A Resolution of the Equity Premium Puzzle?” with B. Ravikumar and Charles H. Whiteman, Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 49, no. 6, September 2002, pp. 1261–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3932(02)00147-2.
“Evaluating Asset-Pricing Models Using the Hansen-Jagannathan Bound: A Monte Carlo Investigation,” with B. Ravikumar and Charles H. Whiteman, Journal of Applied Econometrics, vol. 17, no. 2, March-April 2002, pp. 149–74. https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.640.
“Spectral Welfare Cost Functions,” International Economic Review, vol. 42, no. 2, May 2001, pp. 345–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2354.00113.
“On Measuring the Welfare Cost of Business Cycles,” Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 47, no. 1, February 2001, pp. 61–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3932(00)00052-0.
“Bayesian Leading Indicators: Measuring and Predicting Economic Conditions in Iowa,” with Charles H. Whiteman, International Economic Review, vol. 39, no. 4, November 1998, pp. 997–1014. https://doi.org/10.2307/2527349.

Published Discussions

“News Shocks and the Slope of the Term Structure of Interest Rates: Reply,” with Andre Kurmann, American Economic Review, vol. 107, no. 10, October 2017, pp. 3250–6. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20161946.
“Long-Run Neutrality and Superneutrality in an Arima Framework - Comment,” with John F. Boschen, American Economic Review, vol. 84, no. 5, December 1994, pp. 1470–3. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2117785.

Book Chapters and Conference Proceedings

“Regionalization vs. Globalization,” with Hideaki Hirata and M. Ayhan Kose, in Yin-Wong Cheung and Frank Westermann, eds., Global Interdependence, Decoupling and Recoupling, MIT Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9664.003.0008.
“Revisiting Overborrowing and Its Policy Implications,” with Gianluca Benigno, Huigang Chen, Alessandro Rebucci and Eric R. Young, in Luis Cespedes, Roberto Chang and Diego Saravia, eds., Monetary Policy Under Financial Turbulence, Central Bank of Chile, 2011.
“What to Do When the Crystal Ball Is Cloudy: Conditional and Unconditional Forecasting in Iowa,” with Charles H. Whiteman, in Proceedings of the National Tax Association, 1998.

Working Papers

“A Model for International Spillovers in Commodity Exporters,” with Romain Houssa and Jolan Mohimont, 2021.
“Macro-Financial Linkages in an Era of Globalization,” with Jongrim Ha, M. Ayhan Kose and Eswar Prasad, 2020.
“Estimating Macroeconomic Models of Financial Crises: An Endogenous Regime-Switching Approach,” with Gianluca Benigno, Andrew Foerster and Alessandro Rebucci, 2020.
“Tax Progressivity, Economic Booms, and Trickle-up Economics,” with Laura Jackson and Michael T. Owyang, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper 2019-034A, 2019.
“Optimal Policy for Macro-Financial Crises,” with Gianluca Benigno, Huigang Chen, Alessandro Rebucci and Eric R. Young, NBER Working Paper no. 26397, 2019.
“Dynamic Factor Models with Time Varying Parameters: Understanding Changes in International Business Cycles,” with Marco Del Negro, 2007.

Other Works

“The Rational Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure, Monetary Policy, and Time-Varying Term Premia,” with Michael Dotsey, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Quarterly, Winter 1995.
“M2 and Monetary Policy: A Critical Review of the Recent Debate,” with Michael Dotsey, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Quarterly, Winter 1994.
“Forecasting the Effects of Reduced Defense Spending,” with Peter Ireland, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Review, November/December 1992.