Pedro Amaral |

Senior Research Economist

Pedro Amaral is a senior research economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. His main areas of research are macroeconomics and labor economics. He is particularly interested in studying the effects of financial intermediation frictions as well as episodes of the Great Depression in countries where it occurred.

A native of Lisbon, Portugal, Dr. Amaral earned a bachelor’s degree from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. He earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the Bank, he was an assistant professor of economics at Southern Methodist University.

Fed Publications
Other Publications

Title	Date	Publication	Author(s)	Type
Is U.S. Federal Debt Too Large?	August, 2010		Pedro S Amaral;	News Item
	Abstract: Lately, there has been much talk about the perils of the growing government debt, but according to Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland economist Pedro Amaral, that fear may be misguided. Amaral argues that growth in entitlement spending from programs such as Social Security and Medicare could be more problematic than current increases in Federal appropriations.
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Is U.S. Federal Debt Too Large?	August, 2010		Pedro S Amaral;	Economic Commentary
	Abstract: U.S. federal debt has grown to levels that have not been seen since the aftermath of the Second World War. Many economists argue there is plenty to be worried about when it comes to what this implies for the U.S. economy. This Economic Commentary explains that recent increases in debt are typical of the growth seen historically in times of crisis, but entitlement growth is a different story. Unchecked, it will impair our ability to respond to crises and economic downturns in the future.
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A Multi-Sectoral Approach to the U.S. Great Depression	December, 2009	Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper, no. 09-11	Pedro S Amaral; James C MacGee;	Working Papers
	Abstract: We document sectoral differences in changes in output, hours worked, prices, and nominal wages in the United States during the Great Depression. We explore whether contractionary monetary shocks combined with different degrees of nominal wage frictions across sectors are consistent with both sectoral as well as aggregate facts. To do so, we construct a two-sector model where goods from each sector are used as intermediates to produce the sectoral goods that in turn produce final output. One sector is assumed to have flexible nominal wages, while nominal wages in the other sector are set using Taylor contracts. We calibrate the model to the U.S. economy in 1929, and then feed in monetary shocks estimated from the data. We find that while the model can qualitatively replicate the key sectoral facts, it can account for less than a third of the decline in aggregate output. This decline in output is roughly half as large as the one implied by a one-sector model. Alternatively, if wages are set using Calvo-type contracts, the decline in output is even smaller.
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Job Separations, Heterogeneity, and Earnings Inequality	December, 2009	Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper, no. 09-10	Pedro S Amaral;	Working Papers
	Abstract: Changes in the fraction of workers experiencing job separations can account for most of the increase in earnings dispersion that occurred both between, as well as within educational groups in the United States from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. This is not true of changes in average earnings losses following job separations. A search model with exogenous human capital accumulation calibrated to match some selected moments of the U.S. labor market is used to measure the effects of changes in the fraction of workers experiencing job separations (extensive margin) versus changes in average earnings losses following job separations (intensive margin). While both margins do well in accounting for the increase in the college premium, only the changes in the extensive margin do well in accounting for the increases in the variance of both the permanent and transitory components of earnings.
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Title	Date	Publication	Author(s)	Type
2009 Limited Enforcement, Financial Intermediation and Economic Development: A Quantitative Assessment	October, 2009	International Economic Review, vol. 51 issue 3, pp. 785-811	Pedro S Amaral; Erwan Quintin;	Journal Article
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A Competitive Model of the Informal Sector	July, 2006	Journal of Monetary Economics. vol. 53. no. 7, pp. 1541-1553	Pedro S Amaral; Erwan Quintin;	Journal Article
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The Great Depression in Canada and the United States: A Neoclassical Perspective	July, 2002	Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 5, pp. 45-72	Pedro S Amaral; James C MacGee;	Journal Article
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Pedro Amaral |