Emi Nakamura

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Emi Nakamura
Nakamura in 2017
BornOctober 1980 (age 45)
CitizenshipAmerican, Canadian[1]
SpouseJón Steinsson
Academic background
EducationPrinceton University (BA)
Harvard University (PhD)
Doctoral advisorRobert Barro
Ariel Pakes
Academic work
DisciplineEconomics
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley,
Columbia University
AwardsElaine Bennett Research Prize (2014)
John Bates Clark Medal (2019)
Website

Emi Nakamura (born October 1980) is a Canadian-American economist. She is the Chancellor's Professor of Economics at University of California, Berkeley.[2] Nakamura is a research associate and co-director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research,[3] and a co-editor of the American Economic Review.[4][5] She is known for her empirical approach to macroeconomics. She is known for her empirical approach to macroeconomics and has also contributed to several well-known datasets used in the field.


Education

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Nakamura graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in economics in 2001, completing a senior thesis titled "An Economy with Monetary Business Cycles" under the supervision of Michael Woodford.[6] Nakamura then went on to pursue graduate studies in economics at Harvard University, receiving a Ph.D. in economics in 2007 after completing her doctoral dissertation, titled "Price Adjustment, Pass-through and Monetary Policy", under the supervision of Robert Barro and Ariel Pakes.[7] During her graduate work, she also served as a teaching fellow.

Research

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Nakamura's research focuses on empirical issues in macroeconomics, including price stickiness, the impact of fiscal shocks, and measurement errors in official statistics. Her citation for the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association states that Nakamura has "greatly increased our understanding of price-setting by firms and the effects of monetary and fiscal policies", and cited her "creativity in suggesting new sources of data to address long-standing questions".[8] Nakamura is a prominent figure in the field of new Keynesian economics, which incorporates microeconomic theories and ideas and places them into macroeconomic theories. Nakamura demonstrates this in her work, “Five facts about prices”, by including microdata from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to prove macroeconomic ideas.[8] Her work has been widely cited in macroeconomics textbooks.

Gertler, Daly, Nakamura at AEA 2025

In her most cited work, "Five facts about prices", Nakamura and Jón Steinsson showed that many measured price changes are due to temporary sales, scheduled far in advance, rather than happening as dynamic responses to economic conditions. This suggested that even though economic data features frequent price changes, this can be compatible with macroeconomic models featuring substantial price rigidity.[9] In another highly cited work, "Fiscal stimulus in a monetary union", she and Jón Steinsson use variation in United States government military spending across states to estimate the open-economy government spending multiplier, finding values substantially higher than one. This confirms the prediction of Keynesian macroeconomic models that fiscal stimulus can have substantial effects on output, particularly at the zero lower bound.[9] This study continues to be referenced in policy discussions.

Recognition

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She was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal,[8][10] and was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.[11] She has been awarded a National Science Foundation Career Grant and Sloan Research Fellowship, and was the 2014 recipient of the Elaine Bennett Research Prize,[12][13] She was also named one of the top 25 economists under 45 in 2014 by the International Monetary Fund,[14] and named one of "the decade’s eight best young economists" in 2018 by The Economist.[15] In 2021, she was named a Fellow of the Econometric Society.[16] In August 2025, Nakamura was featured on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots during the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, discussing her paper “Beyond the Taylor Rule” on central bank credibility. [17][18] She continues to participate in professional conferences and seminars.

Recent Working Paper

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Emi Nakamura is currently writing on how minor changes in central bank communication can influence expectations in the economy. In this paper, she and her coauthor argue that even small adjustments in the working, timing or structure of policy announcements can affect how households and forms interpret economic conditions. The paper states that central banks not only influence the economy through interest rates or large policy shifts but also through the messages they provide. According to the authors, clearer communication can help reduce uncertainty, especially during periods when markets are sensitive to signals about future policy direction.

This idea fits with Nakamura’s broader empirical research which often focuses on how people respond to economic information and how expectations shape macroeconomic outcomes. Much of her work uses detailed, data-driven approaches to examine how households and firms make decisions and this note continues that perspective to the area of policy communication. Although brief, the paper states an important point in modern macroeconomics, where small informational changes can sometimes have effects that are comparable to more traditional policy tools.[19]

Personal life

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Nakamura is married to fellow economist and frequent co-author Jón Steinsson, with whom she has two children.[20] She is the granddaughter of economist Guy Orcutt, and the daughter of economists Alice Nakamura and Masao Nakamura.[21][22]

Selected works

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Inflation and price dispersion

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  • Nakamura, Emi; Steinsson, Jón (2008). "Five facts about prices: A reevaluation of menu cost models". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 123 (4): 1415–1464. doi:10.1162/qjec.2008.123.4.1415. JSTOR 40506213. S2CID 1576112.
  • Nakamura, Emi; Steinsson, Jón; Sun, Patrick; Villar, Daniel (2018). "The Elusive Costs of Inflation: Price Dispersion during the U.S. Great Inflation" (PDF). Quarterly Journal of Economics. 133 (4): 1933–1908. doi:10.1093/qje/qjy017. S2CID 14408509.

Monetary policy

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Fiscal policy

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Economic crises

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References

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  1. ^ "Emi Nakamura" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 12, 2019.
  2. ^ "Emi Nakamura". Department of Economics. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  3. ^ "Emi Nakamura". www.nber.org. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
  4. ^ "Editors of the American Economic Review". American Economic Association. Retrieved August 28, 2018.
  5. ^ "Meet our new faculty: Emi Nakamura, economics". Berkeley News. November 14, 2018. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  6. ^ Nakamura, Emi. "An Economy with Monetary Business Cycles". Princeton University Department of Economics.
  7. ^ "Emi Nakamura - CV" (PDF).
  8. ^ a b c "Emi Nakamura, Clark Medalist 2019". American Economic Association. Retrieved May 1, 2019.
  9. ^ a b "Interview: Emi Nakamura" (PDF). Econ Focus--A publication of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank. 2015.
  10. ^ Eberly, Janice; Woodford, Michael (February 1, 2020). "Emi Nakamura: 2019 John Bates Clark Medalist". Journal of Economic Perspectives. 34 (1): 222–239. doi:10.1257/jep.34.1.222. ISSN 0895-3309.
  11. ^ "Emi Nakamura". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
  12. ^ Emi Nakamura Recipient of the 2014 Elaine Bennett Research Prize. American Economic Association. aeaweb.org
  13. ^ "Emi Nakamura Receives AEA's Elaine Bennett Research Prize | Columbia University - Economics". econ.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  14. ^ "NBER Reporter 2015 Number 1: Research Summary". www.nber.org. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  15. ^ "Our pick of the decade's eight best young economists". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  16. ^ "Congratulations to our 2021 Fellows". The Econometric Society. September 22, 2021. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  17. ^ Nakamura, Emi (August 19, 2025). Beyond The Taylor Rule. California, USA: UC Berkley.
  18. ^ "Emi Nakamura on Central Bank Credibility and the Taylor Rule". Bloomberg.
  19. ^ Nakamura, Emi; Steinsson, Jón; Riblier, Venance (September 2025). "Beyond the Taylor Rule". National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved November 23, 2025.
  20. ^ Rampell, Catherine (November 5, 2013). "Outsource Your Way to Success". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  21. ^ "An Interview with Emi Nakamura". CSWEP News. 2015.
  22. ^ CSWEP Talks. aeaweb.org
Awards
Preceded by Recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal
2019 		Most recent