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Home > Economic Research > Meet the Economists
Ethan Cohen-Cole
Financial Economist
T: 617-973-3294
F: 617-573-5494
Ethan.Cohen-Cole@bos.frb.org
 
Education | Work experience | Publications | Public service
Primary fields of research
Macro-finance, applied microeconomics, social networks
 

Biography
Ethan Cohen-Cole is a Financial Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He has worked on banking, risk management, monetary policy, as well as consumer finance issues related to housing and bankruptcy. In the applied microeconomics field, his work has focused on the implications of social networks in health, welfare and personal finance. Methodologically, he focuses on issues of identification of network phenomena.

He earned a B.A. from Harvard University in 1995, a M.P.A from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in 2001 and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2006.
 

Education

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin – Madison, 2006

M.A., University of Wisconsin – Madison, 2004

M.P.A., Princeton University, 2001

B.A., Harvard University, 1995

Work experience

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Financial Economist, 2006-
 
Catholic Relief Services – West Africa
Regional Advisor, 2001-2002
 
World Bank
Consultant, 2000
 
Treacy & Company
Associate, 1997-1998
 
Oliver, Wyman & Company
Consultant, 1995-1997

Publications

Journals

“Are All Health Outcomes “Contagious”? Detecting Implausible Social Network Effects in Acne, Height, and Headaches,” with Jason Fletcher. Forthcoming in British Medical Journal, 2009

“The Spread of Obesity in Social Networks: Revisiting and Extending the Evidence,” with Jason Fletcher. Forthcoming in Journal of Health Economics, 2008.

“Model Uncertainty and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment,” with Steven Durlauf, Jeffrey Fagan, and Daniel Nagin. Forthcoming in American Law and Economic Review, 2008.

“Loss Distribution Estimation, External Data and Model Averaging,” with Todd Prono. Journal of Financial Risk Management. 4(4), 2007.

Unpacking Social Interactions,” with Giulio Zanella. Economic Inquiry. 46(1), 2008.

“Multiple Groups Identification in the Linear-in-Means Model” Economics Letters 92(2): 2006.

“Housing Quality, Neurotoxins and Human Capital Acquisition” Applied Economics Letters 13(12): 2006.

“Social Interactions Models,” with Steven Durlauf, in Encyclopedia of Social Measurement, vol. 3., Kempf-Leonard, K., et al, eds., Elsevier Inc., 2005, pp. 517-522.

 

Working papers

Macro-Finance

Looking Behind the Aggregates: A Reply to 'Facts and Myths about the Financial Crisis of 2008,'” with Burcu Duygan-Bump, José Fillat, and Judit Montoriol-Garriga. FRB Boston QAU Series, paper no. QAU08-5 (2008).

“Capital Adequacy Requirements and Optimal Monetary Policy” with Enrique Martinez-Garcia.

“Nonlinearities in Growth: From Evidence to Policy; Foreign Aid and Macroeconomic Policy,” with Steven Durlauf and Giacomo Rondina. Revision invited to Journal of Economic Growthhttp://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/archive/wp2005-09.pdf

“Household Bankruptcy Decision: role of social stigma vs information sharing,” July 2008 (with Burcu Duygan-Bump)

“Housing Prices, Property Taxes and Neighborhood Relocation” with Enrique Martinez-Garcia and Jonathan Morse.

“Note on Investment Patterns Across Countries: What do we have left to learn from aggregate data?,” July 2008.

Asset Liquidity, Debt Valuation, and Credit Risk.”  FRB Boston QAU Series, paper no. QAU07-5 (2007).

In Noise We Trust? Optimal Monetary Policy with Random Targets,” with Bogdan Cosmaciuc. FRB Boston Series, paper no. 06-14 (2006).

Applied Micro / Social Networks

Credit Card Redlining” FRB Boston QAU Series, paper no. QAU08-1 (2008). Revision invited to Review of Economics and Statistics

“Welfare Stigma or Information Sharing? Decomposing Social Interactions Effects in Social Benefit Use,” with Giulio Zanella (February 2008).

Public service

Referee: Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Economic Journal, Sage Press, Economic Inquiry

 

 

 
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