Tara M. Sinclair
Assistant Professor of Economics and International Affairs

Welcome to my web site! This fall will begin my fourth year at GW.  I received my Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in May of 2005.  My research interests are macroeconomics and time series econometrics. My favorite model is the multivariate correlated unobserved components model.  I am particularly interested in the relationship between business cycles and growth and the role of labor markets.  I'm also quite intrigued by the volatility reduction in US real GDP since 1984, otherwise known as the "Great Moderation."  I have found myself lately also working on the intersection of forecasts and monetary policy.

I am co-director of the Research Program on Forecasting, part of the Center of Economic Research and the Department of Economics at George Washington University.  I am also a member of the Institute for International Economic Policy and the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies of the Elliott School of International Affairs. Outside GW, I am a member of the Euro Area Business Cycle Network (EABCN) and the Board planning the Federal Forecasters Conference for 2009.  I am also the organizer of the Special Interest Group (SIG) on Time Series Analysis for the Society of Computational Economics.

I am pleased to be a GW Institute of Public Policy Policy Research Scholar this academic year (2008-2009).  The title of my project is "Evaluation of Policy Decisions That Involve Forecasts."
 

Click here for a PDF version of my CV
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Courses
 

• Fall 2008:

Econ 102.10: Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory
Econ/Stat 123.80: Introduction to Econometrics
 
• Spring 2009:

Econ 379.10: Graduate Laboratory in Applied Econometrics - Macroeconomics
 

More course information is available on Blackboard, but if you do not have access to Blackboard here at GW, please email me for a copy of my syllabus or other information.
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Upcoming Seminar and Conference Presentations

Click here for the GW University Macro-International Seminar Schedule!

September 29 - October 1, 2008
I will present a poster of  "Output Fluctuations in the G-7:  An Unobserved Components Approach"  at the 5th Eurostat Colloquium on Modern Tools for Business Cycle Analysis in Luxembourg.

October 22, 2008
I will present  “Multivariate Forecast Errors and the Taylor Rule” at the Department of Economics, Wesleyan University.

November 11, 2008
I will present  “Multivariate Forecast Errors and the Taylor Rule” at the Department of Economics, Richmond University.

November 20-22, 2008
I have organized several sessions and will present "Output Fluctuations in the G-7:  An Unobserved Components Approach"  in the Southern Economic Association meetings in Washington, DC.
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Publications
 

• "The Relationships between Permanent and Transitory Movements in U.S. Output and the Unemployment Rate," Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking (forthcoming).
• "Directional Forecasts of GDP and Inflation:  A Joint Evaluation with an Application to Federal Reserve Predictions," with H.O. Stekler and Lindsay Kitzinger, Applied Economics (forthcoming).
• "Searching for Better Prospects:  Endogenizing Falling Job Tenure and Pension Coverage," with Leora Friedberg (University of Virginia) and Michael Owyang (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy: Vol. 6: No. 1, Article 14 (2006).  Working paper versions are available as: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper 2003-038 and NBER Working Paper No. 11808.
• "The Differential Approach to Superlative Index Number Theory," with William A. Barnett (University of Kansas) and Ki-Hong Choi (National Pension Research Center in Seoul, Korea), Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Supplement (December, 2002).
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Working Papers
 
• New 8/19/08!  "Are 'unbiased' forecasts really unbiased? Another look at the Fed forecasts," with Fred Joutz and H.O. Stekler.
• New Version 8/8/08! “Multivariate Forecast Errors and the Taylor Rule” with Edward N. Gamber,  H.O. Stekler and Elizabeth Reid.
• New Version 6/6/08!  "Output Fluctuations in the G-7:  An Unobserved Components Approach," with Sinchan Mitra (Discover Financial Services).
•  “Asymmetry in the Business Cycle:  Revisiting the Friedman Plucking Model.”
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Work in Progress
 
• “Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Emerging Economies:  An Unobserved Components Approach,” with Sinchan Mitra (Discover Financial Services).
• “Parametric and Nonparametric Tests of Stationarity within the Unobserved Components Framework: An Analysis of Size and Power with an Application to U.S. Real GDP and the Unemployment Rate” with James Morley (Washington University).
• “Testing Cointegration in an Unobserved Components Framework:  A Comparison of Analytic and Bootstrap Procedures with an Application to G3 Output,” with James Morley (Washington University).
• “Sequential Detection of US Business Cycle Turning Points:  Comparing the Performance of Shiryayev-Roberts, CUSUM and EWMA Procedures” with Bakhodir Ergashev (Charlotte Branch, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond).
• “Investigating Core Inflation with an Unobserved Components Model” with Michael Bradley and Dennis Jansen.
• “Monetary Policy Shocks and the Taylor Rule,” with Ed Gamber.
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Contact Information

Department of Economics and the Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University
Monroe/Hall of Government 314
2115 G Street NW
Washington, DC 20052
Phone: (202) 994-7988
Fax: (202) 994-6147
Email: tsinc@gwu.edu

Please also visit my SSRN Page:  http://ssrn.com/author=470127
and my Selected Works page:  http://works.bepress.com/tara_sinclair/

Here's a link to my ESIA biography:  http://www.gwu.edu/~elliott/faculty/sinclair.cfm

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Last modified September 4, 2008.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this page are those of the page author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by The George Washington University.