MEA 2004 Annual Conference

About the Speakers

Marco Bassetto is assistant professor of economics at University of Minnesota. Prior to this appointment he taught at Northwestern University. Bassetto regularly teaches graduate courses in public economics, political economy in macroeconomics, and monetary economics.

Professor Bassetto's current research includes macroeconomic theory, applications of game theory to macroeconomics, and design and consistency of macroeconomic policy. He has published in Econometrica, the Journal of Monetary Economic, and the Journal of Economic Theory. He is currently collaborating with Christopher Phelan on the working paper "Tax Riots."

Bassetto received his bachelor's degree in economics from Universita' Commerciale Luigi Bocconi and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Jonathan Eaton is professor of economics at New York University and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Currently, he is a visiting scholar at the Economics Department of the University of Minnesota. Eaton has also held teaching positions at Boston University, University of Virginia, Yale University and Princeton University.

Eaton is the editor of the Journal of International Economics and associate editor of the European Economic Review. In 2003 he served as vice president of the American Economic Association. Recently Eaton was awarded the Frisch Medal for the paper, "Technology, Geography and Trade," that he wrote with Samuel Kortum. The Frisch Medal is awarded biannually for the best applied paper to appear appear in Econometrica. Eaton is a Fellow of the Econometric Society.

Eaton received his bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University and his master's degree and Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.

Chris Farrell brings more than 25 years of experience in economics and journalism to key public radio and television finance shows. Farrell plays a central role on the public radio show "Sound Money" and serves as the personal finance expert on Marketplace Morning Report. He's also contributing editor at Business Week magazine. He hosts public television's personal finance program "Right on the Money" and is the author of the show's companion book, Right on the Money: Taking Control of Your Personal Finances. Farrell has just finished writing a book on deflation. He's also a journalist with American RadioWorks, Minnesota Public Radio's award-winning documentary unit. Farrell is a graduate of Stanford University and The London School of Economics.

Terry Fitzgerald is assistant professor of economics at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., where he teaches courses in economic growth, macroeconomics, and money and banking. He is also a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Prior to these appointments he served as a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Fitzgerald has published several articles on monetary economics, labor economics, econometrics and most recently on the Minnesota economy. Publication of "Business Cycles and Long-Term Growth: Lessons from Minnesota,"The Region (June 2003), led to involvement in several policy conferences, including serving as a keynote speaker at the 2003 Minnesota Education Summit. In economic education, Fitzgerald has helped bring the frontier of macroeconomic research into the undergraduate classroom through Minnesota MacroLab, a project in conjunction with Nobel Laureate Ed Prescott.

Fitzgerald received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Iowa and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota.

Timothy Kehoe is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Minnesota and adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He has held teaching positions at Wesleyan University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge in England. Kehoe's research and teaching center on the theory and application of general equilibrium models.

Kehoe advised the Spanish government on the impact of joining the European Community and the Mexican government on the impact of joining the North American Free Trade Area. Kehoe's community outreach work includes a position on the Board of Economists of the Minneapolis StarTribune and a stint as a columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Kehoe is a Fellow of the Econometric Society.

Kehoe received his bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics from Providence College and his Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.

Steve Levitt is the Alvin H. Baum Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. He also serves as a research fellow for the American Bar Foundation. Before joining the faculty of the University of Chicago, Levitt served as a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.

Levitt has brought economic analysis to a variety of issues, including crime, drugs, voting and abortion. He is known for pioneering a distinct empirical approach that uses novel identification strategies to resolve longstanding questions. When awarding him the John Bates Clark Medal in 2003, the American Economic Association described him as "the most innovative empirical researcher in his cohort."

He currently editor of the Journal of Political Economy and was previously associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Levitt received his bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University and Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Christopher Phelan is senior economist in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches graduate courses in public economics and monetary economics. Prior to these appointments he held teaching positions at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Phelan was also a visiting scholar at New York University.

Phelan is best known for his work in general equilibrium mechanism design and for his work at the intersection of game theory and macroeconomics. His published work includes papers in the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review, Journal of Economic Theory, Review of Economic Studies and Econometrica.

Phelan received his bachelor's degree in economics and computer science from Duke University and his master's degree and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.