Curriculum Vitae

Placement Director: Neil Wallace
    (814) 863-3805
     neilw@psu.edu

Contact Information:
Yosuke Igarashi
Office: (814) 865-2745
Cell: (814) 933 7215
E-mail: yzi102@psu.edu
Website: http://www.econ.psu.edu/~yzi102/

CITIZENSHIP:

• Japan (F1 Visa)

EDUCATION:

• Ph.D., Economics, Penn State University, 2012 (anticipated)
• Research Student, Finance, The University of Tokyo, April 2005- March 2006
• M.A., Economics, The University of Tokyo, 2005
• B.A., Economics, The University of Tokyo, 2003

PH.D. THESIS:

• Essays on Random Search Models
• Thesis Advisor: Neil Wallace

FIELDS:

• Primary:  Macroeconomics, Monetary economics, Labor economics
• Secondary: Finance

PUBLICATION:

• A comment on: ‘Efficient propagation of shocks and the optimal return on money’, joint work with Pidong Huang, forthcoming in J. of Economic Theory

• “Distributional effects of hiring through networks” (Job Market Paper)
• “Stability of monetary steady states in a matching model of money,” joint work with Pidong Huang
• “Why ten $1’s are not treated as a $10?” Joint work with Pidong Huang

ONGOING RESEARCH:

• “Credit risk analysis in the presence of creditor’s option to postpone redemption,” joint work with Ryoichi Ikeda

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

• Teaching Assistant with weekly sessions (1st-year graduate macro), 2008, 2009, 2010
• Teaching Assistant with weekly sessions (undergraduate econometrics), 2008
• Lecturer at The Securities Analysts Association of Japan (Math and statistics for security analysts) 2005, 2006

POSSIBLE TEACHING:

• 1st-year graduate courses in economics: math, measure theory, macroeconomics, financial economics; field courses: macroeconomics, monetary economics, labor economics; any undergraduate course

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE:

• Research Assistant, 2011-2012

PRESENTATIONS & OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

• Cornell-Penn State macro workshop, Fall 2010, presentation of [4]
• The 9th National Taiwan University International Conference on Economics, Finance, and Accounting, May 2011, presentation of [5]
• Cornell-Penn State macro workshop, Fall 2011, presentation of [2]
  

REFERENCES:

• Dr. Neil Wallace -  Department of Economics,
  Pennsylvania State University, 814-863-3805
• Dr. Edward Green (on leave during 2011-12 academic year), Department of Economics, Pennsylvania State University
• Dr. Manolis Galenianos (on leave during 2011-12 academic year), Department of Economics, Pennsylvania State University
  

THESIS ABSTRACT

The thesis consists of four essays ([1]-[4]).

 [1] A comment on: ‘Efficient propagation of shocks and the optimal return on money’ (joint work with Pidong Huang)

     This paper shows that introducing lotteries into Cavalcanti-Erosa (2008) eliminates two prominent features of their optima: over-production and history-dependence.

      Cavalcanti-Erosa (2008) study optima in a version of Trejos-Wright (1995). They introduce into it i.i.d. aggregate shocks to preferences, shocks with a two-point support. They show that for an interval of intermediate magnitudes for the discount factor, the ex ante optimum over all individually rational (IR) and deterministic trades displays two properties: output is higher than the first-best when the shock is such that the first-best output is low and there is history dependence—that is, promised utilities play a role.

     We show that if lotteries are allowed, then higher ex ante utility is achieved and neither property holds at an optimum. Moreover, the optimum can be supported by buyer take-it-or-leave-it offers.

[2] “Distributional effects of hiring through networks” (Job Market Paper)

     We present a variant of Galenianos (2011), a version of a random search model with two matching technologies: a standard matching function and worker networks. Our model has two types of workers, networked workers and non-networked workers. A steady state equilibrium exists where networked workers enjoy lower unemployment and higher wages, and it is unique under some conditions.

     Then we ask a question: how would a policy that bans the use of networks in hiring (e.g., anti-old boy network laws) affect welfare? It is shown that the effects of such a policy on non-networked workers can be either positive or negative, depending on model parameters. In our calibration, such a policy would make non-networked workers slightly worse off and networked workers substantially worse off.

[3] “Stability of monetary steady states in a matching model of money” (joint work with Pidong Huang)

      In the Trejos-Wright (1995) random matching model, people’s money holding is in {0,1} and the total stock of money is fixed, so the money-holding distribution across people is exogenously fixed. Under buyer take-it-or-leave-it offers, Zhu (2003) extends the money holding set to {0,1, …, N}. When N is greater than one, the money-holding distribution is no longer exogenous and becomes the state variable of the economy. Zhu shows existence of a valued-money, full-support steady state and existence of a valued-money non-full-support steady state.

      We analyze the stability of such steady states when N=2. When N=2, there are two monetary steady states: the full-support one and the non-full-support one, the latter being isomorphic to the Trejos-Wright steady state (no one holds or trades one unit). A sharp contrast is obtained: the full-support steady state is locally stable and determinate; the non-full-support steady state is unstable. The instability result says that if the economy starts with a small positive measure of people holding one unit of money, then it does not converge to the non-full-support steady state.

[4] “Why ten $1’s are not treated as a $10?” (Joint work with Pidong Huang)

      This paper generalizes the instability finding in [3] for the Zhu model with a general upper bound.
As Zhu (2003) shows, the existence of his full-support steady state implies the existence of non-full-support steady states constructed as follows. Consider the full-support steady state in a given economy. Then consider a different economy where both the bound and the total stock of money are an integer multiple L relative to the original economy. In this new economy, there is a non-full-support steady state where all the owned/traded units of money are a multiple L of that in the original economy, but the quantity of production of goods remains unchanged. We show that such non-full-support steady states are unstable. That is, there is no equilibrium path that converges to these steady states if the initial distribution has a different support.