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About the Author(s)

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  Laura Veldkamp is a research associate in the NBER's Economic Fluctuations and Growth Program and is the Cooperman Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia University. She is a co-editor of the Journal of Economic Theory, the first woman to hold that role. She also serves on the Economic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and is the author of the Ph.D. textbook, Information Choice in Macroeconomics and Finance.

Veldkamp's research explores the role of information in the aggregate economy. Her topics range from business cycles and mutual fund performance to home bias and female labor force participation. A unifying theme of her work is that treating information, or the ability to process information, as a scarce and valuable resource helps to remedy many failures of full-information, rational expectations frameworks. Her recent work uses these information tools to understand the aggregate consequences of the digital economy.

Veldkamp received a B.A. in applied mathematics and economics from Northwestern University and her Ph.D. in economic analysis and policy from Stanford University. She joined the Columbia faculty in 2018 after teaching at New York University for 15 years.

A native of Lexington, Massachusetts, Veldkamp met her husband, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, while at Stanford. She enjoys playing the viola, playing squash with her two boys, and sculling.

Endnotes

1. "The Tail that Wags the Economy: Beliefs and Persistent Stagnation", Kozlowski J, Veldkamp L, Venkateswaran V. NBER Working Paper 21719, November 2015, and Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming, 2019. Go to ⤴︎
2. "Disaster Risk and Business Cycles," Gourio F. NBER Working Paper 15399, October 2009, and American Economic Review, 102(6), October 2012, pp. 2734–2766. Go to ⤴︎
3. “The Tail That Keeps the Riskless Rate Low,” Kozlowski J, Veldkamp L, Venkateswaran V. NBER Working Paper 24362, February 2018, and NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2018, 33, June 2019, pp. 253–283. Go to ⤴︎
4. Bias in Nonlinear Estimation,” Box M. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 33(2), 1971, pp. 171–201. Go to ⤴︎
5. Biased Inflation Forecasts,” Afrouzi H, Veldkamp L. Paper presented at the Society for Economic Dynamics Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO, June 2019. Go to ⤴︎
6. “The Common Origin of Uncertainty Shocks,” Kozeniauskas N, Orlik A, Veldkamp L. NBER Working Paper 22384, July 2016, and published as “What Are Uncertainty Shocks?Journal of Monetary Economics, 100, December 2018, pp. 1–15. Go to ⤴︎
7. “Understanding Uncertainty Shocks and the Role of Black Swans,” Orlik A, Veldkamp L. NBER Working Paper 20445, August 2014. Go to ⤴︎

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