
Dr. Maryam Mirfatah
Academic and research departments
School of Economics, Centre for International Macroeconomic Studies.Biography
Maryam is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Economics at the School of Economics, University of Surrey. She joined the Centre for International Macroeconomic Studies (CIMS) in 2018 on the project of "Macroeconomic Modelling and Policy Analysis for Emerging Economies”. Her general research interests are in open economy macroeconomics and economic modeling using structural and empirical DSGE macroeconomic multi-country models for the purpose of macroeconomic policy analysis. The current focus of her work has been twofold: first, currency pricing issues and their implications for optimal monetary policy rules; second, optimal unconventional monetary policy and macro-prudential policies in both closed and open-economy NK models with financial frictions. Maryam obtained her BSc in Statistics, MSc in Economics and PhD in Economics (2019) focusing on Money Growth Rules in Emerging Economies, all from Iran. Her personal website is https://sites.google.com/view/maryammirfatah/home.
Research
Research interests
Maryam's general research interests are in macroeconomics, monetary economics, financial macroeconomics, macroprudential policies, unconventional monetary policy, fiscal and monetary policy in the open economy using structural and empirical DSGE macroeconomic multi-country models for the purpose of macroeconomic policy analysis.
Research projects
We develop a small open economy model interacting with a rest-of-the-world bloc, containing several emerging economies' features: Calvo-type nominal frictions in prices and wages, financial frictions in the form of limited asset markets participation (LAMP), as well as both formal and informal sectors. In addition, we introduce incomplete exchange rate pass-through via a combination of producer and local currency pricing for exports, as well commodity-dependence in the form of an oil export sector. We contrast the stability and determinacy properties of money growth and standard Taylor-type interest rate rules, showing that monetary rules are stable regardless of the level of asset market participation, i.e. they avoid the inversion of the Taylor principle. We estimate our 2-bloc model using data for Iran and the USA employing Bayesian methods and we study the empirical relevance of the frictions in our model. Our results reveal important propagation channels active in emerging economies and that taking these into account is essential for policymaking decisions. Indeed, shocks to the economy are amplified by the presence of LAMP, while the informal sector acts as buffer to several shocks, lowering the variability of aggregate and formal fluctuations.
We construct a small open economy (SOE) DSGE model interacting with the rest of the world (ROW). We depart from the standard SOE model along the following dimensions: Firstly, we nest two different pricing paradigms: dominant currency pricing (DCP) alongside producer currency pricing (PCP). Second, the production function uses not just labour but also capital and intermediate inputs produced domestically and abroad. Finally international asset markets are incomplete. Using US and Canadian data we explore the empirical evidence for PCP vs DCP pricing paradigms through a Bayesian estimation likelihood race and a comparison with the second moments of the data. We then examine the implications of these two paradigms for the conduct of monetary policy using optimized Taylor-type inertial interest rate rules with a zero lower bound constraint. The main results are first, in a likelihood race DCP easily beats PCP and gives a better fit with second moments of the data. Second, whereas for the closed economy ROW the price-level rule closely mimics the optimized general infation-output rule, for the SOE the corresponding result requires a nominal income rule.
I study the monetary Policy Implications of Dominant, vs Local vs Producer Currency Pricing in a 3-country model.
we set up a composition of BGG-GK banking sector based with liquidity injections to the banking sector. We compare welfare benefits of an optimized liquidity rule alongside an optimized interest rates rule by computing an optimized liquidity rule alongside an optimized interest rate rule with a ZLB constraint on the interest rate.
We are closely examining the claim in the Gopinath papers that choosing a form of preferences that lead to kinked demand curves (“Kimball Preferences”) is an important source of incomplete exchange rate pass-through. But this must happen without generating a counterfactual “super-elasticity” as is the case for the closed economy. There has been a renewed interest in Kimball preferences for both the closed economy (e.g., Klenow and Willis (2016) and Linde and Trabandt (2018a)) and the open economy ( e.g., Gopinath and Itskhoki (2010a), Gopinath and Itskhoki (2011)), The focus of this paper is to try to show how this real rigidity improves data in terms of marginal likelihood races and matching data on the frequency of price and wage contract revisions, price and wage super-elasticities, Philips' Curve slopes and second moments. An important technical contribution is the recursive set-up for Kimball preferences suitable for higher order solutions and computation of welfare-optimal rules.
We are extending the two-country model to an m-country framework that will allow us to extend the PCP vs DCP to local currency pricing.
We are using our m-country framework to study welfare-optimal exchange rate intervention rules alongside those for monetary policy.
We are studying financial frictions and macro-prudential policy rules in an open-economy setting.
My teaching
- Sep. 2020 - CIMS Summer Course on The Science and Art of DSGE Modelling (classes)
- A.Y. 2020 - University of Surrey - Advanced Macroeconomics (postgraduate - classes) - (4.8/5)
- April. 2019 - CIMS Easter Course on DSGE Modelling in Dynare (classes)
- A.Y. 2019 - University of Surrey - Mathematics supports (undergraduate - classes)
My publications
Highlights
Publications
''The impact of exchange rate volatility on foreign direct investment in Iran'' with Hosein Sharifi - Procedia Economics and Finance - Vol. 1, pages 365-373, July 2012.
''Analysis the Impact of Good Governance on the Non-Oil Export of Oil Exporting Countries'' with Hosein Sharifi, Hassan Mollaesmaeili - Journal of Economic Policy and Research - Vol. 8(1), pages 1-14, March 2013.
''The impact of exchange rate volatility on foreign direct investment in Iran'' with Hosein Sharifi, Saied Karimzadeh - Financial Monetray Economics - 10(22), pages 178-152, December 2015 (In persian).
''The Effects of Economic Liberalization on Macroeconomic Indicators in Iran: With Emphasis On Trade Liberalization'' with Hosein Sharifi, Forugh Shoaie, Hosein tavakolnian - Strategic Studies of Globalization Journal - 4(7), pages 20-58, 2013 (In Persian).
''The Role of Economic Liberalization on The Performance of Financial Markets in Some MENA Countries: With Emphasis On Monetary and Financial Liberalization'' with Hosein Sharifi, Hasan Mollaesmaeili - Journal of Monetary And Banking Research - 6(15), pages 1-26, 2012 (In Persian).
Working Papers
''Monetary Growth Rules in an Emerging Open Economy'' with Paul Levine, Vasco Gabriel. (Job Market Paper-Submitted)
''Imperfect Exchange Rate Pass through: Empirical Evidence and Monetary Policy Implications'' with Paul Levine, Vasco Gabriel.
Works in Progress
"Monetary Policy Implications of Dominant, vs Local vs Producer Currency Pricing"
''Optimal Liquidity and Monetary Rules in a New Keynesian Model with Financial Frictions'' with Paul Levine, Joseph Pearlman, Stylianos Tsiaras.
''Kimball Preferences in the Smets-Wouters NK Model'' with Paul Levine, Jonathan Swarbrick, Szabolcs Deak.
''Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Open Economy Models: A General m-Country Framework'' with Paul Levine, Vasco Gabriel, Jonathan Swarbrick.
''Optimal Monetary and Forex Intervention Rules in a open economy framework'' with Paul Levine, Vasco Gabriel, Jonathan Swarbrick.
''Financial Frictions and Macro-Prudential Policy Rules in Open Economy Models'' with Paul Levine, Vasco Gabriel, Sandra Rhouma.