Christopher L. Foote, a senior economist and policy advisor in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, currently serves as advisor to the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decisionmaking. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1987, and then worked for two years as a newspaper reporter in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He received an economics Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1996. From 1996 to 2002, Foote taught at Harvard University’s department of economics, where he also served as director of undergraduate studies. In July 2002, he accepted a position as senior staff economist with the Council of Economic Advisers, becoming chief economist at the CEA in February 2003. From May 2003 to September 2003, he served as an economic advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq, returning briefly to Iraq in January and February of 2004. He joined the Boston Fed in October 2003.
For Chris's commentary on current issues in real estate research, see the Atlanta Fed's "Real Estate Research" blog.
Refereed journal articles
"Reducing Foreclosures." with Kristopher S. Gerardi, Lorenz Goette and Paul Willen. NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, forthcoming.
"Just the Facts: An Initital Analysis of the Subprime Crisis," with Kristopher S. Gerardi, Lorenz Goette, and Paul Willen. 2008. Journal of Housing Economics, 17(4): 291-305.
"Negative Equity and Foreclosure: Theory and Evidence," with Kristopher S. Gerardi and Paul Willen. 2008. Journal of Urban Economics. 64(2): 234-245.
“The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment,” with Christopher F. Goetz. Quarterly Journal of Economics. (123):1 (February 2008)
“Economic Prospects and Policy in Iraq,” with William Block, Keith Crane, and Simon Gray. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 18(3). (Summer 2004): 47-70.
“Arbitraging a Discriminatory Labor Market: Black Workers at the Ford Motor Co., 1918-1947,” with Warren Whatley and Gavin Wright. Journal of Labor Economics. 21(3). (August 2003): 493-532.
“Trend Employment Growth and the Bunching of Job Creation and Destruction.” Quarterly Journal of Economics. 113(3). (August 1998): 809-834.
Other journal articles
Comment on “Volatility and Dispersion in Business Growth Rates: Publicly Traded and Privately Held Firms,” by S. Davis, J. Haltiwanger, R. Jarmin, and J. Miranda, NBER Macroeconomics Annual. (2006).
“Testing the (S,s) Model,” with John Leahy and Erik Hurst. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings. 90(2). (May 2000): 116-119.
Comment on “Contract-Theoretic Approaches to Wages and Displacement,” by W. J. den Haan, G. Ramey, and J. Watson, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review. (May/June 1999).
Working papers and other unpublished papers
"Why Did So Many People Make So Many Ex Post Bad Decisions? The Causes of the Foreclosure Crisis," with Kristopher S. Gerardi and Paul S. Willen. FRB Boston Public Policy Discussion Paper Series, paper no. 12-2.
"Oil and the Macroeconomy in a Changing World: A Conference Summary," with Jane S. Little. FRB Boston Public Policy Discussion Paper Series, paper no. 11-3, (2011).
"Reasonable People Did Disagree: Optimism and Pessimism About the U.S. Housing Market Before the Crash," with Kristopher Gerardi and Paul Willen. FRB Boston Public Policy Discussion Paper Series, paper no. 10-5, (2010).
"A Proposal to Help Distressed Homeowners: A Government Payment-Sharing Plan," with Jeff Fuhrer, Eileen Mauskopf and Paul Willen. FRB Boston Public Policy Brief Series, no. 09-1, (2009)
"Reducing Foreclosures," with Kristopher Gerardi, Lorenz Goette and Paul S. Willen. FRB Boston Public Policy Discussion Papers Series, no. 09-2 (2009).
"Negative Equity and Foreclosure: Theory and Evidence," with Kristopher Gerardi and Paul S. Willen. FRB Boston Public Policy Discussion Papers Series, no. 08-3. (2008)
"Subprime Facts: What (We Think) We Know about the Subprime Crises and What We Don't," with Kristopher Gerardi, Lorenz Goette and Paul S. Willen. FRB Boston Public Policy Discussion Papers Series, no. 08-2 (2008).
“Space and Time in Macroeconomic Panel Data: Young Workers and State-Level Unemployment Revisited.” FRB Boston Working Papers Series, no. 07-10 (2007).
“The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime: Comment,” with Christopher F. Goetz. FRB Boston Working Papers Series, no. 05-15 (2005). [Originally posted as “Testing Economic Hypotheses with State-Level Data: A Comment on Donohue and Levitt (2001)”]
(Revised in January 2008).
“Economic Prospects and Policy in Iraq,” with William Block, Keith Crane, and Simon Gray. FRB Boston Public Policy Discussion Papers Series, no. 04-1 (2004).
Books and book chapters
"Behavioral Economics: Its Prospects and Promises for Policymakers", with Lorenz Goette and Stephan Meier, in "Policymaking Insights from Behavioral Economics," based on a conference sponsored by the Boston Fed's Research Center for Behavioral Economics, 2007.
Book reviews
Review of Economic Turbulence: Is a Volatile Economy Good for America? by C. Brown, J. Haltiwanger and J. Lane, Journal of Economic Literature (June 2008).
Review of Coping with Recession: UK Company Performance in Adversity, by P.A. Geroski and P. Gregg, Journal of Economic Literature (June 2000).
Review of Dual Labor Markets: A Macroeconomic Perspective, by G. Saint-Paul, Journal of Economic Literature. (September 1998).
Video presentations
"The Great Recession" September 2010.
Editor, Berkeley Electronic Journal of Macroeconomics
Associate Editor, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking