I am currently a PhD candidate in economics at Columbia University, concentrating in macroeconomics, monetary policy, and public economics. My research focuses on how household and worker heterogeneity affects the transmission of monetary and fiscal policy. Before coming to Columbia, I earned an MSc. in economics from the London School of Economics. My personal website is wendyamorrison.com.
This paper studies the trade-offs associated with income redistribution in an overlapping gen-
erations model in which savings rates increase with permanent income. By transferring resources
from high savers to low savers, redistribution lowers aggregate savings, and depresses investment. I
derive sufficient conditions under which this savings behavior generates a welfare trade-off between
permanent income redistribution and capital accumulation in the short and long run. I quantify the
size of this trade-off in two ways. First, I derive a sufficient statistic formula for the impact of this
channel on welfare, and estimate the formula using U.S. household panel data. When redistribution
is done with a labor income tax, the welfare costs associated with my channel are around 1/3 the
size of those associated with labor supply distortions. Second, I solve a quantitative overlapping
generations model with un-insurable idiosyncratic earnings risk in which savings rates increase with
permanent income calibrated to the U.S. in 2019. In this setting, I find that around 17 percent of
the trade-off between permanent income redistribution and average consumption can be attributed
to my channel
Working Papers
Redistribution and Investment: current version
Optimal Monetary Policy with Redistribution (joint with Jennifer La’O): current version
Papers Under Revisions
Capital-Task Complementarity and the Labor Income Channel of Monetary Policy: current version
Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Political Economy: Macro
I designed and taught a summer money and banking elective course at Columbia. I have posted the syllabus and student evaluations here: (Money and Banking Syllabus) (Student Evaluations)
Macroeconomic Analysis (PhD level), Columbia University, Teaching Assistant (Fall 2021)
Intermediate Macroeconomics, Columbia University, Teaching Assistant (Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Summer 2021, Spring 2022)
Money and Banking, Columbia University, Teaching Assistant (Fall 2020, Fall 2023)
Microeconomic Analysis (MA level), Columbia University, Teaching Assistant (Spring 2020)
