Jain Family Institute Launches a New Macroeconomic Research Initiative

“I’m thrilled to lead the new Macroeconomic Research project at the Jain

Family Institute and contribute to a critical shift in economic policy. Our

goal is to build the intellectual framework and practical policies to achieve

an equitable, sustainable economy and financial security for all

Americans.” - Claudia Sahm, Director of Macroeconomic Research.

Hey, hey, that’s me! But it’s not about me; my new work is about you.

It’s time for a change in macroeconomics.

Jain Family Institute created this new initiative to contribute to the sea change in macroeconomic policy, providing tools and frameworks on employment and inflation. I have the honor to lead the team. We have big plans for this year.

Congress, presidential administrations, and Federal Reserve officials acted aggressively to alleviate the economic disruptions and hardship caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. JFI’s Macroeconomic Research project aims to study the effectiveness of these policy actions and draw lessons to inform future policy decisions. The project will use cutting-edge research, new empirical tools, and public-facing communications to do so. A primary goal is to develop policy recommendations that could lead to broad-based and inclusive employment and an economy that works for everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, or geography.

The change must center on all people.

Our program focuses on full employment—an economy in which everyone who wants to work has a job—and related issues. Economists have struggled to define and pursue full (or maximum) employment. Our program contributes to those efforts.

Policymakers at all levels of government and across agencies are formally committed to full employment. Even so, the implementation has been uneven and incomplete—as one example, the racial disparities in the labor market reflect that the United States has never achieved full employment.

The Fed is leading the change to do its job.

In 2022, our work is primarily related to the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices, in particular the goals in the Fed’s new monetary policy framework. The Fed currently faces decisions about raising interest rates, so research on new empirical tools and theoretical models is timely and could help inform the current policy.

JFI’s macro program aims to address three main questions:

• What are reliable quantitative indicators of “broad-based” and “inclusive” employment?

• How does the pursuit of stable prices and maximum employment affect people in different demographic groups or parts of the country?

• What are the theoretical trade-offs between stable prices and maximum employment?

Economic events and the direction of the policy debate drive our analysis; however, we are committed to a set of projects, such as research briefs to explain the goals of monetary policy; data metrics for the Fed’s new goals; and macroeconomic research using a cutting-edge distributional macro model–referred to as a Heterogeneous Agent New Keynesian model.

Our program’s primary audiences are policymakers and their staff, other macroeconomic experts in academia and the policy community, as well as the general public. Our analysis in its many formats will respect the differences in technical backgrounds and interests of our audiences. We welcome feedback on our new program and opportunities to collaborate.

Work with me as a Macroeconomic Analyst.

An ambitious initiative is a team effort. We are seeking an analyst with a background in distributional macroeconomic modeling and monetary policy to support research projects on the Federal Reserve’s new strategic framework. Time commitment 10 hours per week. Pay: A stipend of $7,500, paid in biweekly installments for six months with the possibility of renewal.

The ideal candidate would be a dissertation candidate or an advanced student in a doctoral program in economics. This analyst will construct a Heterogeneous Agent New Keynesian model and assist in using it to evaluate monetary policy options. Prior work with HANK models is required.

Find more details and how to apply here.

This new initiative builds on JFI’s great work.

In 2021 I worked with JFI as a Senior Fellow in their Guaranteed Income Program. It’s been a great experience with a great organization. They helped support my research and analysis on stimulus checks to families during the Covid crisis. (Read here and here.) I learned and studied other income-support programs like the new Child Tax Credit. I co-authored a research report with Stephen Nuñez and Sidhya Balakrishnan on the credit’s macroeconomic effects.

JFI, staff, and affiliated experts are committed to non-partisan, independent, evidence-based work on policies. That’s why I am here.

The Jain Family Institute is a nonpartisan applied research organization in the social sciences that works to bring research and policy from conception in theory to implementation in society. Founded in 2014 by Robert Jain, JFI focuses on building evidence around the most pressing social problems.

My Substack will keep going too!

It’s important to me to have a public voice too, as you may have noticed. JFI is giving me the space to pursue work outside of my duties with them.

I will continue to write here and do some consulting projects.

Wrapping Up

I am truly blessed to be the first Director of Macroeconomic Research at Jain Family Institute. It’s time for a sea change in macroeconomic policy. This initiative will support that goal and bring the best research to the conversation.

Policies are about people, so please, if you have any ideas for me, email me at claudia.sahm@jainfamilyinstitute.org.

Let’s do this together!

The views here are my own and do not represent Jain Family Institute or any of my colleagues.