Professor Evans's first full-time academic appointments were at the University of Stirling, Scotland, and then at Stanford University from 1981-1987. In 1983-4 he visited the London School of Economics and then in 1987 he joined the Economics Department at the L.S.E., where he remained until 1993. During 1993-4 he was the George Watson and Daniel Stewart Professor of Political Economy at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In September 1994 he came to the University of Oregon as the first John B. Hamacher Professor of Economics, a newly endowed Chair. He was named a College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor in 2005.
Research interests:
George Evans has investigated a wide range of theoretical and empirical topics in macroeconomics including tests for speculative bubbles, the effect of sectoral imbalance on unemployment, the decomposition of aggregate output into trend and cycle, and the formulation of theoretical models of endogenous fluctuations. In his work on "rational bubbles" he has examined the statistical evidence for the presence of bubbles in foreign exchange rates and in stock prices. Econometric work on business cycles showed how to extract the cyclical component of GDP using multivariate forecasting methods.
Professor Evans is best known for his research on expectational stability and learning in stochastic, dynamic models with multiple equilibria. In these models, economic agents are assumed to have bounded rationality in making forecasts -- e.g. to use simple or sophisticated extrapolative rules. Because agents learn and adapt to forecast errors, they may, in the long run, approximate full rationality. The techniques are used, in particular, to determine when the economy can become trapped into cycles, "sunspot equilibria" or hyperinflationary paths, and how macroeconomic policy can steer the economy away from these inefficient outcomes.
Recent research has continued to focus on the role of expectations in macroeconomic fluctuations. One project showed how complementarities can lead to "growth cycles" generated by self-fulfilling fluctuations in business confidence and investment. Another recent project examined the effects of fiscal restrictions on inflation and monetary stability. A major focus of current research is the role of expectations and learning in optimal monetary policy design and in the interaction of monetary and fiscal policy. Other current research includes new technical results on the existence of adaptively stable sunspot equilibria, with applications to monetary models, and an examination of the importance of heterogeneous expectations.
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