april 2022 headshot

Sharon Harrison

Professor and Program Director, New Pathways Bridgewater Scholars Program

Department

Economics

Office

1006 Milstein Learning Center

Monday, Tuesday 1:30-2:30, and by appointment

Contact

CV

Sharon Harrison, Professor of Economics, joined the Barnard faculty in 1997. Professor Harrison's teaching specialties include macroeconomics, statistics, and econometrics.

At Barnard, she has taught courses as First Year Seminar: Chaos, Intermediate Macroeconomics, Mathematical Methods for Economics, and Business Cycles.

Professor Harrison's research interests include applied econometrics, business cycle theory, and indeterminacy and sunspots in macroeconomics. Her recent work applies social networks, both theoretically and experimentally,  to try to understand the self-fulfilling nature of expectations as it applies to the models with sunspots and indeterminacy.

Her newest fascination, unintended consequences has also taken her into the lab. Along with collaborators Pietro Battiston and Loran Chollete, she has established the Unintended Consequences Lab. And, in her blog, she interviews authors who have written about some of her favorite examples.

 

  • B.S. Tufts University
  • M.A., Ph.D., Northwestern University

  • Macroeconomics
  • Business cycle theory
  • Indeterminacy and sunspots in macroeconomics
  • Behavioral and experimental economics

  • Mathematical Methods for Economics, Fall 2022

“Indeterminacy with Progressive Taxation and Sector-Specific Externalities,” with Jang-Ting Guo, Pacific Economic Review,  20:2, May 2015, 268–281.

“Sunspots and Credit Frictions,” with Mark Weder, Macroeconomic Dynamics, September 2012, 1‐15.

“Indeterminacy with No-Income-Effect Preferences and Sector-Specific Externalities,” with Jang-Ting Guo, Journal of Economic Theory 145, 2010, 287-300.

"Technological Change and the Roaring Twenties: A Neoclassical Perspective," with Mark Weder, Journal of Macroeconomics 31:3, September 2009, 363-375.

"Useful Government Spending and Macroeconomic (In)stability Under Balanced Budget Rules" (with J-T Guo), Journal of Public Economic Theory10(3), 2008, 383-397.

"Asset Pricing in Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models with Indeterminacy" (with N. Gershun), Macroeconomic Dynamics 12 (2008)

"Government Size and Macroeconomic Stability: A Comment" (with J-T Guo), European Economic Review 50 (2006)

"Did Sunspot Forces Cause the Great Depression?" (with M. Weder), Journal of Monetary Economics 53 (2006)

"Do Sunspots Reflect Consumer Confidence? An Empirical Investigation," Eastern Economic Journal 31 (2005)

"Balanced Budget Rules and Macroeconomic (In)stability" (with J-T Guo), Journal of Economic Theory 119 (2004)

"Returns to Scale and Externalities in the Consumption and Investment Sectors," Review of Economic Dynamics 6 (2003)

"Tracing Externalities as Sources of Indeterminacy" (with M. Weder), Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 26 (2001)

"Indeterminacy with Capital Utilization and Sector- Specific Externalities" (with J-T Guo), Economics Letters 72 (2001)

"Indeterminacy in a Model with Sector-Specific Externalities," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 25 (2001)

"Tax Policy and Stability in a Model with Sector- Specific Externalities" (with J-T Guo), Review of Economic Dynamics 4 2001

"Indeterminacy in a Model with Aggregate and Sector-Specific Externalities" (with M. Weder), Economics Letters 69 (2000)

"Chaos, Sunspots and Automatic Stabilizers" (with L. J. Christiano), Journal of Monetary Economics 44 (1999)