Carlos A. Vegh
Encyclopedia
Carlos A. Végh is an Uruguay
an academic economist. He is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland
and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research
. He was previously a Professor of Economics and Vice-Chair of Undergraduate Studies at UCLA. His research work on monetary and fiscal policy in emerging and developing countries has been highly influential and is regularly featured in the international financial press.
, Uruguay
on August 1, 1958, the son of a prominent Uruguay
an economist, Alejandro Végh Villegas
, who served as Economy Minister of Uruguay
from 1974 to 1976 and again from 1982 to 1983. He is also the grandson of Carlos R. Végh Garzón, who was Economy Minister in 1967.
Between 1979 and 1982, Végh studied economics as an undergraduate at the Universidad de la Republica (Uruguay
), before transferring to American University
, where he received a B.A. in Economics in 1983. He started his Ph.D.
in Economics at the University of Chicago
in 1983 and graduated in 1987, working under the supervision of Joshua Aizenman and Jacob Frenkel. While at Chicago, he was the H.B. Earhart Fellow (1984–1986), sponsored by Prof. Robert E. Lucas Jr. After graduating, he joined the International Monetary Fund's Research Department. In 1995, he left the IMF and was a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Chicago. He became a (tenured) Associate Professor at UCLA's Economics Department in 1996. He was Professor of Economics at UCLA from 1998 to 2007 and Vice-Chair for Undergraduate Studies in 2004–2005. During 1997–2003, he was the Chair of the Program in Comparative and Topical Studies at UCLA's Latin American Center. In 2005, he became Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland
.
Végh has been co-editor of both the Journal of Development Economics
(2000–2003) and the Journal of International Economics
(1999–2003). He has also been on the editorial board of the International Tax and Public Finance and the Latin American Economic Review, among others, and currently serves on the editorial board of the IMF Economic Review. He was an elected member of LACEA's Executive Committee (1998–2000) and served as Treasurer from 2002 to 2004. He won the Warren C. Scoville Distinguished Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching while at UCLA in 2001 and has won several awards for graduate teaching at the University of Maryland
. He was Senior Resident Scholar at the IMF's Research Department (2003–2004) and has also been a visiting scholar at the IMF's Office of the First Deputy Managing Director, the Inter-American Development Bank
's Research Department, the Banco de la Republica (Central Bank of Colombia
), and Banco de Mexico
(Central Bank of Mexico). He has also been a visiting professor at the Universidad del Pacìfico (Perú
) and Universidad del CEMA (Argentina
). He is also a contributor to VoxEU.
, the American Economic Review
, the Review of Economic Studies
, the Journal of Monetary Economics
, the Journal of International Economics
, the Journal of Development Economics
, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, the Journal of Economic Literature
, the Journal of Economic Perspectives
, and the National Bureau of Economic Research's Macroeconomics Annual, among others. He contributed (jointly with Guillermo Calvo
) with a chapter on inflation stabilization and BOP crisis to the Handbook of Monetary Economics (edited by John Taylor
and Michael Woodford
). He is also the co-editor of Money, Crisis, and Transition: Essays in Honor of Guillermo Calvo
(published by MIT Press
) and is currently working on a graduate textbook on open economic macroeconomics in developing countries (forthcoming, MIT Press
).
Vegh's has 4 papers with more than 300 Google Scholar citations and 17 papers with more than 100 Google Scholar citations. He is also among the top 5 percent of research economists worldwide according to 31 different criteria used by IDEAS.
His work and views are regularly featured in the international press, including The New York Times
,The Economist
, Financial Times
, The Wall Street Journal
, La Nación
(Argentina), The National Review, El Colombiano
(Colombia), La Tercera
(Chile), Asia Times
, and Reuters
, among others. Vegh's work on high inflation has been cited in speeches by Ben Bernanke
and Charles L. Evans (President of the Federal Reserve of Chicago). The current Chancellor of the Exchequer
, George Osborne
, referred to Vegh's work on fiscal multipliers in a campaign speech in September 2009.
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
an academic economist. He is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland
When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...
and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research
National Bureau of Economic Research
The National Bureau of Economic Research is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community." The NBER is well known for providing start and end...
. He was previously a Professor of Economics and Vice-Chair of Undergraduate Studies at UCLA. His research work on monetary and fiscal policy in emerging and developing countries has been highly influential and is regularly featured in the international financial press.
Early life and career
Végh was born in MontevideoMontevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
on August 1, 1958, the son of a prominent Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
an economist, Alejandro Végh Villegas
Alejandro Végh Villegas
Alejandro Végh Villegas is a Uruguayan political figure.-Background:He has been a prominent business leader in Uruguay...
, who served as Economy Minister of Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
from 1974 to 1976 and again from 1982 to 1983. He is also the grandson of Carlos R. Végh Garzón, who was Economy Minister in 1967.
Between 1979 and 1982, Végh studied economics as an undergraduate at the Universidad de la Republica (Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
), before transferring to American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
, where he received a B.A. in Economics in 1983. He started his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in Economics at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 1983 and graduated in 1987, working under the supervision of Joshua Aizenman and Jacob Frenkel. While at Chicago, he was the H.B. Earhart Fellow (1984–1986), sponsored by Prof. Robert E. Lucas Jr. After graduating, he joined the International Monetary Fund's Research Department. In 1995, he left the IMF and was a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Chicago. He became a (tenured) Associate Professor at UCLA's Economics Department in 1996. He was Professor of Economics at UCLA from 1998 to 2007 and Vice-Chair for Undergraduate Studies in 2004–2005. During 1997–2003, he was the Chair of the Program in Comparative and Topical Studies at UCLA's Latin American Center. In 2005, he became Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland
When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...
.
Végh has been co-editor of both the Journal of Development Economics
Journal of Development Economics
The Journal of Development Economics is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier. It was established in 1974 and is considered the top field journal in development economics....
(2000–2003) and the Journal of International Economics
Journal of International Economics
The Journal of International Economics is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of economics. The journal publishes articles on both theoretical and empirical aspects of international economics...
(1999–2003). He has also been on the editorial board of the International Tax and Public Finance and the Latin American Economic Review, among others, and currently serves on the editorial board of the IMF Economic Review. He was an elected member of LACEA's Executive Committee (1998–2000) and served as Treasurer from 2002 to 2004. He won the Warren C. Scoville Distinguished Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching while at UCLA in 2001 and has won several awards for graduate teaching at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland
When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...
. He was Senior Resident Scholar at the IMF's Research Department (2003–2004) and has also been a visiting scholar at the IMF's Office of the First Deputy Managing Director, the Inter-American Development Bank
Inter-American Development Bank
The Inter-American Development Bank is the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean...
's Research Department, the Banco de la Republica (Central Bank of Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
), and Banco de Mexico
Banco de México
The Bank of Mexico , abbreviated BdeM or Banxico, is Mexico's central bank and lender of last resort. The Bank of Mexico is autonomous in exercising its functions, and its main objective is to achieve stability in the purchasing power of the national currency.On December 15, 2009, Agustín Carstens...
(Central Bank of Mexico). He has also been a visiting professor at the Universidad del Pacìfico (Perú
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
) and Universidad del CEMA (Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
). He is also a contributor to VoxEU.
Research and publication
Végh's main areas of expertise are monetary and fiscal policy in emerging and developing countries. His most influential work has been on inflation stabilization in high inflation countries, inflation and growth in transition economies, interest rate policy in developing countries, optimal exchange rate regimes, cyclical properties of fiscal policy in developing countries, and fiscal multipliers. His work has been published in leading international scholarly journals such as the Journal of Political EconomyJournal of Political Economy
The Journal of Political Economy is an academic journal run by economists at the University of Chicago and published every two months by the University of Chicago Press. The journal publishes articles in both theoretical economics and empirical economics...
, the American Economic Review
American Economic Review
The American Economic Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics publishing seven issues annually by the American Economic Association. First published in 1911, it is considered one of the most prestigious journals in the field. The current editor-in-chief is Penny Goldberg . The...
, the Review of Economic Studies
Review of Economic Studies
The Review of Economic Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal in economics. It was established in 1933 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell. It is the eighth-ranked economics journal in overall impact according to the ranking of Kalaitzidakis et al...
, the Journal of Monetary Economics
Journal of Monetary Economics
The Journal of Monetary Economics is a leading journal on macroeconomics and monetary economics currently published by Elsevier. Its first issue was in October of 1973. Beginning in 2002, the Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy: a bi-annual conference proceedings began to be...
, the Journal of International Economics
Journal of International Economics
The Journal of International Economics is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of economics. The journal publishes articles on both theoretical and empirical aspects of international economics...
, the Journal of Development Economics
Journal of Development Economics
The Journal of Development Economics is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier. It was established in 1974 and is considered the top field journal in development economics....
, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, the Journal of Economic Literature
Journal of Economic Literature
The Journal of Economic Literature is a peer-reviewed academic journal on economy published by the American Economic Association. It was established in 1963 as the Journal of Economic Abstracts. As a review journal, it mainly features essays and reviews of recent economic theories...
, the Journal of Economic Perspectives
Journal of Economic Perspectives
The Journal of Economic Perspectives is an economic journal published by the American Economic Association. The journal is very broad in its scope...
, and the National Bureau of Economic Research's Macroeconomics Annual, among others. He contributed (jointly with Guillermo Calvo
Guillermo Calvo
Guillermo Antonio Calvo is an Argentine economist who is currently Director of Columbia University's mid-career Program in Economic Policy Management in their School of International and Public Affairs ....
) with a chapter on inflation stabilization and BOP crisis to the Handbook of Monetary Economics (edited by John Taylor
John B. Taylor
John Brian Taylor is the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at Stanford University's Hoover Institution....
and Michael Woodford
Michael Woodford (economist)
Michael Dean Woodford is an American macroeconomist and monetary theorist who currently teaches at Columbia University.-Academic career:...
). He is also the co-editor of Money, Crisis, and Transition: Essays in Honor of Guillermo Calvo
Guillermo Calvo
Guillermo Antonio Calvo is an Argentine economist who is currently Director of Columbia University's mid-career Program in Economic Policy Management in their School of International and Public Affairs ....
(published by MIT Press
MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...
) and is currently working on a graduate textbook on open economic macroeconomics in developing countries (forthcoming, MIT Press
MIT Press
The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts .-History:...
).
Vegh's has 4 papers with more than 300 Google Scholar citations and 17 papers with more than 100 Google Scholar citations. He is also among the top 5 percent of research economists worldwide according to 31 different criteria used by IDEAS.
His work and views are regularly featured in the international press, including The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
,The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
, Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, La Nación
La Nación
La Nación is an Argentine daily newspaper. The country's leading conservative paper, the centrist Clarín is its main competitor. It is the only newspaper in Argentina still published in broadsheet format.-Overview:...
(Argentina), The National Review, El Colombiano
El Colombiano
El Colombiano is the leading newspaper in Antioquia Department in Colombia whose headquarters are located in Medellín.The first edition of this newspaper was published on February 6, 1912 which only had one page, 13 advertisements, but no news articles. In 1976, the first color pictures were added...
(Colombia), La Tercera
La Tercera
La Tercera , formerly known as La Tercera de la Hora , is a daily newspaper published in Santiago, Chile and owned by Copesa. It is El Mercurios closest competitor....
(Chile), Asia Times
Asia Times
Asia Times was a newspaper launched in Thailand by Thai tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul in 1995. The newspaper hired talent from around the world to produce a regional English-language newspaper....
, and Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
, among others. Vegh's work on high inflation has been cited in speeches by Ben Bernanke
Ben Bernanke
Ben Shalom Bernanke is an American economist, and the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. During his tenure as Chairman, Bernanke has overseen the response of the Federal Reserve to late-2000s financial crisis....
and Charles L. Evans (President of the Federal Reserve of Chicago). The current Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
, George Osborne
George Osborne
George Gideon Oliver Osborne, MP is a British Conservative politician. He is the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, a role to which he was appointed in May 2010, and has been the Member of Parliament for Tatton since 2001.Osborne is part of the old Anglo-Irish aristocracy, known in...
, referred to Vegh's work on fiscal multipliers in a campaign speech in September 2009.
External links
- Carlos Végh's homepage at the University of Maryland
- Végh's vitae at the University of Maryland
- Végh's papers available online
- NBER publications by Végh
- Végh's profile at IDEAS
- Végh's profile at the NBER
- Végh's profile at VOX
- Végh's graduate textbook on open economy macroeconomics (forthcoming, MIT Press).
- Media briefing from the Royal Economic Society on Végh's work on interest rate defense of currencies