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Pedro Amaral |

Senior Research Economist

Pedro Amaral, Senior Research Economist

Pedro Amaral is a senior research economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. His main areas of research are macroeconomics and labor economics. He is particularly interested in studying the effects of financial intermediation frictions as well as episodes of the Great Depression in countries where it occurred.

A native of Lisbon, Portugal, Dr. Amaral earned a bachelor’s degree from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. He earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the Bank, he was an assistant professor of economics at Southern Methodist University.

  • Fed Publications
  • Other Publications
Title Date Publication Author(s) Type

 

 June, 2012 ; Economic Commentary
Abstract: In the latest recession, unemployment rates in the United States increased at a faster pace than in the average OECD country. Since the unemployment rate has been more sensitive to technological shocks in the United States in the past than in other OECD countries, I investigated whether increased sensitivity to such shocks was the reason for the recent relative increase in the U.S. unemployment rate. I find this was not the case.
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 August, 2011 ; Economic Commentary
Abstract: During the last recession, credit flows suffered their worst slowdown since World War II. A look at selected credit market measures gives some insight into why the slowdown was so severe. The measures also show that in spite of the size of the shock, credit flows actually recovered extremely quickly—a testament to the depth of the credit markets, and possibly the interventions that were taken to support them.
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 August, 2010 ; Economic Commentary
Abstract: U.S. federal debt has grown to levels that have not been seen since the aftermath of the Second World War. Many economists argue there is plenty to be worried about when it comes to what this implies for the U.S. economy. This Economic Commentary explains that recent increases in debt are typical of the growth seen historically in times of crisis, but entitlement growth is a different story. Unchecked, it will impair our ability to respond to crises and economic downturns in the future.
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 December, 2009 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper, no. 09-11 ; James C MacGee; Working Papers
Abstract: We quantify the role of contractionary monetary shocks and wage rigidities in the U.S. Great Contraction. While the average economy-wide real wage varied little over 1929-33, real wages did rise signicantly in some industries. We calibrate a two-sector model with intermediates to the 1929 U.S. economy, where wages in one sector adjust slowly. We find that nominal wage rigidities can account for less than a fifth of the fall in GDP over 1929-33. Intermediate linkages play a key role, as the output decline in our benchmark is roughly half as large as in our two-sector model without intermediates.
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 December, 2009 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper, no. 09-10 ; Working Papers
Abstract: Changes in the fraction of workers experiencing job separations can account for most of the increase in earnings dispersion that occurred both between, as well as within educational groups in the United States from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. This is not true of changes in average earnings losses following job separations. A search model with exogenous human capital accumulation calibrated to match some selected moments of the U.S. labor market is used to measure the effects of changes in the fraction of workers experiencing job separations (extensive margin) versus changes in average earnings losses following job separations (intensive margin). While both margins do well in accounting for the increase in the college premium, only the changes in the extensive margin do well in accounting for the increases in the variance of both the permanent and transitory components of earnings.
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Title Date Publication Author(s) Type
2009 Limited Enforcement, Financial Intermediation and Economic Development: A Quantitative Assessment

 

 October, 2009 International Economic Review, vol. 51 issue 3, pp. 785-811 ; Erwan Quintin; Journal Article
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A Competitive Model of the Informal Sector

 

 July, 2006 Journal of Monetary Economics. vol. 53. no. 7, pp. 1541-1553 ; Erwan Quintin; Journal Article
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The Great Depression in Canada and the United States: A Neoclassical Perspective

 

 July, 2002 Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 5, pp. 45-72 ; James C MacGee; Journal Article
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