Alberto Polo
I am a senior research economist in the Monetary Analysis Directorate at the Bank of England and a member of the Centre for Macroeconomics.
I received my Ph.D. in Economics from New York University in 2019.
My research interests are in macroeconomics, monetary economics, labor economics, and household finance.
Published
‘AND YET, IT MOVES’: INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY IN ITALY (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2022)
with Paolo Acciari (Ministry of Economy and Finance of Italy) and Gianluca Violante
We estimate intergenerational income mobility in Italy using administrative data from tax returns. Our estimates of mobility are higher than prior work using survey data and indirect methods. The rank- rank slope of parent-child income is 0.22, compared to 0.18 in Denmark and 0.34 in the United States. The probability that a child reaches the top quintile of the national income distribution starting from a family in the bottom quintile is 0.11. We uncover substantial geographical variation: upward mobility is much stronger in north- ern Italy, where provinces have higher measured school quality, more stable families, and more favorable labor market conditions.
Journal article | Ungated version
Coverage (in Italian): articolo di Linkiesta.it, articolo de Il Foglio, articolo di lavoce.info
Coverage (in English): video of the presentation at the FRdB Conference
Working Papers
SCREENING USING A MENU OF CONTRACTS: A STRUCTURAL MODEL FOR LENDING MARKETS
with Arthur Taburet and Quynh-Anh Vo (R&R Journal of Financial Economics)
When lenders screen borrowers using a menu, they generate a contractual externality by making the composition of their competitors’ borrowers worse. Using data from the UK mortgage market and a structural model of screening with endogenous menus, this paper quantifies the impact of asymmetric information on equilibrium contracts and welfare. Counterfactual simulations show that, because of the externality, there is too much screening along the loan-to-value dimension. The deadweight loss, expressed in borrower utility, is equivalent to an interest rate increase of 30 basis points (a 15 percent increase) on all loans.
IMPERFECT PASS-THROUGH TO DEPOSIT RATES AND MONETARY POLICY TRANSMISSION - NEW VERSION
(submitted)
I document three salient features of the transmission of monetary policy shocks: imperfect pass-through to deposit rates, impact on credit spreads, and substitution between deposits and other bank liabilities. I develop a monetary model consistent with these facts, where banks have market power on deposits, a duration-mismatched balance sheet, and a dividend-smoothing motive. A key novelty is that deposit demand has a dynamic component, as in the literature on customer markets. A financial friction makes non-deposit funding supply imperfectly elastic. The model indicates that imperfect pass-through to deposit rates is an important source of amplification of monetary policy shocks.
Works In Progress
WORKING FROM HOME, WAGES AND HOUSE PRICES IN THE UK
with May Rostom and Vanessa Schmidt (draft coming soon)
HOUSEHOLD INCOME AND DEBT
with Andrea Alati and Fergus Cumming