Marcet Torrens, Albert
ICREA Research Professor at Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI).
Social & Behavioural Sciences
Short biography
* PhD in Economics U. of Minnesota, 1987 * Assistant professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 1986-1991 * Full Professor, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 1990-2004 * Research Professor, IAE-CSIC, 2004-2009 * Full Professor, London School of Economics, 2009-2011, Full Professor, University College London, Jan 2019-Sept 2020
Research interests
RECURSIVE CONTRACTS many models in social sci. involve dynamic optimization with forward-looking constraints (, e.g., policy analysis or contracts). These are not amenable to a standard Bellman equation treatment. We propose a new way of formulating recursively these dynamic optimization problems. Our approach has a very wide range of applications. ASSET PRICES AND LEARNING Asset prices show huge fluctuations over time that are hard to reconcile with actual fundamentals. We study agents that behave rationally and have an empirically plausible model of asset prices to explain asset behavior. DEBT MANAGEMENT recent debt crisis highlight the importance of bond portfolios issued by governments (debt management). We analyze the optimal combination of bond maturities that should be issued over the business cycle. FISCAL POLICY: this is a main them in macroeconomics, we use the above tools to study fiscal pollicy, speciallly with heterogeneous agents.