Virginia Commonwealth University

Assistant Professor of Economics

Christopher worked at Virginia Commonwealth University as a Assistant Professor of Economics

Arizona State University

Graduate Assistant

Aug 2008 - May 2009: Research fellowship
June 2009 - Aug 2009: Teaching Assistant for Managerial Economics (MBA)
Aug 2008 - Dec 2010: Research assistant for Prof. Richard Rogerson
Aug. 2010 - May 2012: Research assistant for Prof. Berthold Herrendorf
Summers 2010, 2011: Research Analyst at Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Summer 2012: Instructor for ECN 313, Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory
Aug 2012 - Dec 2012: Teaching Assistant for Macroeconomic Principles

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Assistant Economist

Served as research assistant for economists. Responsibilities included data collection and preparation, writing computer code to solve economic models, writing memos for internal use, refereeing papers for publication, and presenting economists and bank president with updates of national economic conditions prior to FOMC meetings.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Research Analyst

Research assistant for Prof. Edward C. Prescott

University of South Alabama

Assistant Professor of Economics

Christopher worked at University of South Alabama as a Assistant Professor of Economics

Sectoral Technology and Structural Transformation

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

Sectoral Technology and Structural Transformation

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

Public Education Financing, Earnings Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility

Review of Economic Dynamics

Sectoral Technology and Structural Transformation

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

Public Education Financing, Earnings Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility

Review of Economic Dynamics

Factors affecting college attainment and student ability in the U.S. since 1900

Review of Economic Dynamics

We develop a dynamic life-cycle model to study long-run changes in college completion and the relative ability of college versus non-college students in the early twentieth century. The model is disciplined in part by constructing a historical time series on real college costs from printed government documents dating to 1916. The model captures nearly all of the increase in attainment and ability sorting between college and non-college individuals between the 1900 to 1950 birth cohorts. Time variation in college costs, the college earnings premium, and the precision of ability signals all play a critical role for explaining different data moments and time periods, primarily through their interaction with binding borrowing constraints. Our quantitative results imply that attainment is broadly driven by the interaction of changing real college costs and the rising earnings premium, while ability sorting is driven by the earnings premium and increasing precision of ability signals.

Sectoral Technology and Structural Transformation

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

Public Education Financing, Earnings Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility

Review of Economic Dynamics

Factors affecting college attainment and student ability in the U.S. since 1900

Review of Economic Dynamics

We develop a dynamic life-cycle model to study long-run changes in college completion and the relative ability of college versus non-college students in the early twentieth century. The model is disciplined in part by constructing a historical time series on real college costs from printed government documents dating to 1916. The model captures nearly all of the increase in attainment and ability sorting between college and non-college individuals between the 1900 to 1950 birth cohorts. Time variation in college costs, the college earnings premium, and the precision of ability signals all play a critical role for explaining different data moments and time periods, primarily through their interaction with binding borrowing constraints. Our quantitative results imply that attainment is broadly driven by the interaction of changing real college costs and the rising earnings premium, while ability sorting is driven by the earnings premium and increasing precision of ability signals.

On the Sources of Movements in Inflation Expectations

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Quarterly