Eric Leeper

About

Eric Leeper is the Paul Goodloe McIntire Professor in Economics at the University of Virginia, a position he began in 2018. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, director of the Virginia Center for Economic Policy at the University of Virginia, an external advisor to the Swedish central bank, and a member of the Research Council of the Bundesbank. His research focuses on theoretical and empirical models of macroeconomic policy, with special emphasis on monetary-fiscal policy interactions. One line of work focuses on a new mechanism—called the “fiscal theory of the price level”—by which fiscal policy can influence economic activity and inflation. Recent research examines the economic impacts of government spending, the macroeconomic consequences of alternative resolutions to long-run fiscal imbalances, and the modeling of the “fiscal limit” and sovereign risk. Leeper received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1989 and a B.S. in economics from George Mason University in 1980. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia, Leeper spent 23 years at Indiana University and eight years in the Federal Reserve System. His background includes being born in Isfahan, Iran, and spending his school-age years in Taiwan, Malaysia, Seattle, Hong Kong, and Northern Virginia.

Research topics

• Economics
• Macroeconomics
• Monetary economics

Selected publications

• Inflation’s role in optimal monetary-fiscal policy

  Journal of Monetary Economics · 2021 · 41 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Optimal Time-Consistent Monetary, Fiscal and Debt Maturity Policy

  Journal of Monetary Economics · 2020 · 41 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Strategic Interactions in U.S. Monetary and Fiscal Policies
\n

  Durham Research Online (Durham University) · 2022-05-01 · 30 citations

  articleOpen access

  We estimate a model in which fiscal and monetary policy obey the targeting rulesof distinct policy authorities, with potentially different objective functions. Wefind: (1) Time-consistent policy fits U.S. time series at least as well as instrument-rules-based behavior; (2) American policies often do not conform to the conven-tional mix of conservative monetary policy and debt-stabilizing fiscal policy, al-though economic agents expect fiscal policy to stabilize debt eventually; (3) Evenafter the…

  PublisherDOI

• Recovery of 1933

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2019-03-01 · 20 citations

  preprint

  When Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard in April 1933, he converted what had been effectively real government debt into nominal government debt to open the door to unbacked fiscal expansion. We argue that he followed a state-contingent fiscal rule that ran nominal-debt-financed primary deficits until the price level rose and economic activity recovered. Theory suggests that government spending multipliers can be substantially larger when fiscal expansions are unbacked than when they are tax-b…

  PublisherDOI

• Optimal Time-Consistent Monetary, Fiscal and Debt Maturity Policy

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2019-03-01 · 9 citations

  preprint1st authorCorresponding

  The textbook optimal policy response to an increase in government debt is simple-monetary policy should actively target inflation, and fiscal policy should smooth taxes while ensuring debt sustainability.Such policy prescriptions presuppose an ability to commit.Without that ability, the temptation to use inflation surprises to offset monopoly and tax distortions, as well as to reduce the real value of government debt, creates a state-dependent inflationary bias problem.High debt levels and short…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Monetary and Fiscal Policy Switching: Theory and Empirics

  NSF · $204k · 2005–2009

Frequent coauthors

• Troy Davig

  98 shared

• Todd B. Walker

  Indiana University Bloomington

  87 shared

• Nora Traum

  52 shared

• Tack Yun

  44 shared

• Michael Plante

  Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

  44 shared

• Shu-Chun Susan Yang

  43 shared

• Tao Zha

  Emory University

  40 shared

• Huixin Bi

  29 shared

Similar researchers at University of Virginia

• Anton Korinekh-43
• James Harriganh-40
• John McLarenh-31