Kenneth Rogoff

Kenneth Saul " Ken " Rogoff ( born March 22, 1953 in Rochester (New York)) is an American economist. Since 1999 he is a professor at Harvard University. From 2001 to 2003 he was chief economist of the International Monetary Fund ( IMF).

  • 5.1 Monographs
  • 5.2 Contributions in scientific journals

Life

Rogoff received his bachelor and master's degree from Yale University summa cum laude and honors Honors in Economics. In 1980 he was awarded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the degree of Ph.D. His dissertation topic was Essays on Expectations and Exchange Rate Volatility.

From 1980 to 1983 he worked as an economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. From 1982 to 1983 he was Department of the International Monetary Fund in the research. From 1985 to 1988 he was associate professor at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. He received in 1989 from the University of California at Berkeley His first professorship. In 1992 he moved to Princeton University, where he headed the Department of Foreign Trade for seven years.

In 1999, Rogoff at Harvard University, where he has been professor of public policy ever since. 2001 to 2003 he was also Chief Economist and Scientific Director of the IMF.

Scientific positioning

Rogoff is considered as an economist with a market-friendly mindset. He has published since the early 1980s, to a large extent on issues of economic policy and international finance. His focus here is on exchange rates, international debt and international monetary policy. His 1983 published writing to exchange rates, in which he proved that economic models are not able to replicate the exchange rate more accurate than the random walk model, is still considered groundbreaking.

2001/2002 came Rogoff in a public confrontation with the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank. The debate was carried by Stiglitz's criticism of the policies of the IMF. In response to the allegations Stiglitz's Rogoff wrote an open letter.

Rogoff evaluated the recovery of the U.S. economy critical, so he predicted August 2008 to develop " the worst is yet " and the collapse of major U.S. banks. He also has the history of financial crises studied and written about them a book.

Growth in a time of debt

Has been controversial for 2013 be published along with Carmen Reinhart essay, Growth in a time of debt. This was published in May 2010 article concludes that the economic growth of an economy then REDUCED strong when the debt climb to more than 90 percent of gross domestic product. He had come to this statement after he had analyzed economic data over the last 800 years from a total of 66 countries. This post has been adopted by many politicians to justify austerity.

Thomas Herndon, economists and graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, analyzed the data processed with Microsoft Excel and came to the conclusion that the Excel spreadsheet by Rogoff and Reinhart contained errors. He noticed that Rogoff and Reinhart some data very strange weighted in their study and individual countries, which had grown significantly in spite of high debt had (especially New Zealand), are excluded. Also, some data were not included in the calculation because of an error in Excel formulas. After the calculation of Herndon economic growth not a broke even with a debt from 90 percent of gross domestic product. Criticism of the work of Rogoff came, among others, by Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. It was, inter alia, noted that the causality is reversed, countries have, therefore, a high national debt because they have serious economic problems. Rogoff was held that he had with his Excel - supported austerity errors, thus causing high unemployment.

Rogoff replied that his mistake was indeed embarrassing to the central research findings, however, would not change anything. A high national debt could have a negative impact on economic growth. The problem with the discussion is also that the study of some politicians and political activists of various camp had been exaggerated. Thus the impression was created as if they had maintained a simple relation between public debt and economic growth in general and undifferentiated in favor of austerity. The question of whether high government debt resulting from lower tax revenues and slower economic growth or whether economic growth slowed high national debt can not be answered in general. He believes that the causality can basically go either way, because without that you can make a general statement.

Barry Eichengreen is the view that Reinhart and Rogoff were nuanced and careful in their original analysis. The policy conclusions derived from Olli Rehn and Paul Ryan had been negligent but, Reinhart and Rogoff here would have to disagree.

Private

Rogoff is married and has two children.

In his youth, Rogoff was considered one of the best chess players in the United States. He took part in several times by the U.S. Chess Championship, and in 1978 received the title of International Grandmaster by the World Chess Federation FIDE, after he had qualified for a qualifying tournament to select a challenger for the world chess championship.

Honors

2008: Bernhard Harms Prize from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy

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