Emi Nakamura

• 1. The Princeton And Harvard Years

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  Emi Nakamura graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2001. Her senior thesis carried the title An Economy with Monetary Business Cycles. Michael Woodford supervised her work during that undergraduate period. She then moved to Harvard University for graduate studies. There she earned a Ph.D. in economics in 2007. Her doctoral dissertation bore the name Price Adjustment, Pass-through and Monetary Policy. Robert Barro and Ariel Pakes served as her supervisors at Harvard. During her time as a graduate student she also worked as a teaching fellow.

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• 2. Microdata And Price Stickiness

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  Nakamura and Jón Steinsson published their most cited paper Five facts about prices. They used microdata from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to analyze price changes. Their research showed many measured price changes resulted from temporary sales scheduled far in advance. These sales occurred before dynamic responses to economic conditions could take place. This finding suggested frequent price changes remained compatible with macroeconomic models featuring substantial price rigidity. Another highly cited work titled Fiscal stimulus in a monetary union examined United States government military spending across states. The authors estimated open-economy government spending multipliers using variation in that spending. They found values substantially higher than one. This confirmed Keynesian macroeconomic model predictions regarding fiscal stimulus effects on output.

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• 3. Medals And Professional Honors

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  The American Economic Association awarded Nakamura the John Bates Clark Medal. Her citation stated she greatly increased understanding of price-setting by firms. It also noted the effects of monetary and fiscal policies on those settings. She received the Elaine Bennett Research Prize in 2014. A National Science Foundation Career Grant supported her early independent research. The Sloan Research Fellowship followed shortly after. In 2019 she was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The International Monetary Fund named her one of the top 25 economists under 45 in 2014. The Economist listed her among the decade's eight best young economists in 2018. She became a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2021.

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• 4. Central Bank Communication Studies

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  Nakamura recently wrote about how minor changes in central bank communication influence expectations. She argued with her coauthor that small adjustments to working, timing or structure affect household interpretation. Policy announcements shape how households and firms interpret economic conditions. Clearer communication helps reduce uncertainty during sensitive market periods. Central banks influence economies through messages just as they do via interest rates. This paper fits her broader empirical focus on how people respond to economic information. Much of her work uses detailed data-driven approaches to examine decision-making processes. Her current research continues this perspective into policy communication areas.

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