I am a sixth year PhD candidate in Economics Northwestern University, working on macroeconomics.

My research focuses on macroeconomic dynamics, and monetary economics.

I will be on the job market during the 2025-2026 academic year.

Email: andr.ferrara1@gmail.com

Download CV here

Job Market Paper

Why the Federal Reserve Cuts Rates when Public Debt Rises
with Luca Zanotti
Abstract: We document a new fact: conditional on inflation and output, the Federal Reserve lowers its policy rate when the U.S. public debt-to-GDP ratio rises. To explain this pattern, we develop and estimate a New Keynesian model with shocks to households’ demand for public debt. These shocks generate a negative comovement between public debt and the natural rate of interest, defined as the real rate that would prevail in the flexible-price economy. Assuming that the Federal Reserve adjusts its policy rate in line with the natural rate, this mechanism rationalizes the negative relationship between debt and the policy rate. We show that these shocks are a key driver of business-cycle fluctuations and that policy rules responding to the natural rate reduce the volatility of inflation and output relative to standard rules. We further construct a debt-informed measure of the natural rate using a time-varying parameter vector autoregression model. Once this measure is included in the policy rule, an increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio no longer reduces the federal funds rate, consistent with the mechanism highlighted by the model.

Working Papers

Cautious Monetary Policy
July 2025

Intra-Household Bargaining and Labor Market Outcomes - Evidence from Shared Parental Leave
with M. Hampole, and J. Monteiro
December 2024

Work in Progress

A State Space Approach to Instrument Selection
with Michael Cai

Publications

Empirical Investigation of a Sufficient Statistic for Monetary Shocks
with F. Alvarez, E. Gautier, H. Le Bihan, and F. Lippi
Review of Economic Studies, Volume 92, Issue 4, July 2025