Ph.D. Candidate, Economics, New York University
ALBERTO
POLO
I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Economics at New York University.
My research interests are in macroeconomics, monetary economics and banking.
job market paper
IMPERFECT Pass-Through to Deposit Rates and Monetary Policy TRANSMISSION
Abstract: I study a monetary model which is consistent with three salient features of the transmission of monetary policy. First, deposit rates adjust partially to changes in the Federal Funds rate. Second, banks substitute deposits with other liabilities in response to contractionary monetary policy changes. Finally, contractionary monetary policy shocks increase credit spreads, and in particular mortgage spreads. In the model, banks have market power in the deposit market, invest in long-duration assets but borrow using short-duration liabilities, and have a dividend-smoothing motive. Moreover, demand for banks' deposits has a dynamic component: it responds gradually to changes in current and past deposit rates, as in the literature on customer markets. I use the model to study the implications of imperfect pass-through to deposit rates for monetary policy transmission and find that the imperfect pass-through to deposit rates amplifies the response of output to monetary policy changes.
WORKING PAPERS
‘And Yet, It Moves’: Intergenerational Mobility in Italy (with Paolo Acciari and Gianluca Violante)
Abstract: We link administrative data on tax returns across two generations of Italians to study the degree of intergenerational mobility. We estimate that a child with parental income below the median is expected to belong to the 44th percentile of its own income distribution as an adult, and the probability of moving from the bottom to the top quintile of the income distribution within a generation is 0.10. The rank-rank correlation is 0.25, and rank persistence at the top is significantly higher than elsewhere in the income distribution. Upward mobility is higher for sons, first-born children, children of self-employed parents, and for those who migrate once adults. The data reveal large variation in child outcomes conditional on parental income rank. Part of this variation is explained by the location where the child grew up. Provinces in Northern Italy, the richest area of the country, display upward mobility levels 3-4 times as large as those in the South. This regional variation is strongly correlated with local labor market conditions, indicators of family instability, and school quality.
Macroeconomic Fluctuations and Countercyclical Income Risk
Abstract: What are the quantitative implications of countercyclical labor earnings risk? This paper investigates the welfare effects of eliminating business cycles when households face cyclical changes in the skewness of the labor earnings distribution as estimated by Guvenen, Ozkan and Song (2014). Using a heterogeneous agent, general equilibrium model with aggregate shocks I find that the average welfare effect can be as large as 9% of lifetime consumption. The welfare gain comes entirely from removing cyclical changes in the distribution of persistent idiosyncratic shocks. At the individual level, the welfare gain is increasing in earnings and decreasing in wealth. Low-earnings, low-wealth households however have little to lose from countercyclical risk and prefer the economy with aggregate fluctuations.
Market Concentration and Investment Cyclicality (with Peifan Wu)
In progress: We find that higher market concentration is related to stronger cyclicality of investment at both firm and industry level, and is negatively correlated with labor share and investment rate in the cross-section. We build a macroeconomic model with a continuum of industries. Within each industry, firms play a dynamic duopoly game by investing in capital. Strategic investment competition generates time-varying firm and industry markups endogenously. Preliminary results show that the model is qualitatively consistent with the empirical evidence. Firms’ strategic investment decisions play a key role in determining market concentration and the impact on the business cycle.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Teaching Assistant:
Statistics, Prof. Lucas Bernard, Spring 2016; Prof. Xiaochen Fan, Fall 2017
Introduction to Macroeconomics, Prof. Andrew Paizis, Fall 2015
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Research Assistant for Prof. Gianluca Violante and Greg Kaplan (New York University - University of Chicago)
New York, Sep 2016 - May 2018
Translated from Fortran into Julia programming language the solution to Kaplan and Violante (2014, Econometrica) life-cycle model with liquid and illiquid assets and extended it to nest income processes with negative skewness and high kurtosis, large foreseen expenses, consumption-habits formation, ... in order to study distributions of MPCs and compare models of consumption-saving decisions.
Research Assistant for Prof. Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas Sargent (New York University)
New York, May - Aug 2016
Translated from Matlab into Julia programming language the solution to Kehoe, Midrigan and Pastorino (2016, WP) search-and-matching model of the labor market with credit constraints and extended it to fixed wage case à la Hall (2005, AER).
Research Assistant for Prof. Thomas Sargent and John Stachurski (New York University)
New York, Jul - Aug 2015, Aug 2016
Improved package for function approximation written in Julia programming language (CompEcon.jl) and expanded the discrete dynamic programming section of the QuantEcon.jl library for economics as well as other lectures. Maintained different repositories of QuantEcon source code.
EDUCATION
New York University, New York, NY
Ph.D., Economics, 2013 - 2019 (Expected)
Thesis Title: Essays in Macroeconomics
Università Commerciale L. Bocconi, Milan
M.Sc., Economic and Social Sciences, Sep 2010 - Mar 2013
B.Sc., Economics, Sep 2007 - Jul 2010
Both degrees awarded with a full graduation grade 110/110 cum laude
University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, Philadelphia, PA
Exchange Program, Finance and Economics, Jan - May 2010
References
Virgiliu Midrigan
Mark Gertler
Gianluca Violante
EMAIL ME AT: ALBERTO.POLO@NYU.EDU
Department of Economics, New York University
19 W 4th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10012 USA