Jon Faust
mostly economics

Who?

I am a the Louis J. Maccini Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins and Director of the new Center for Financial Economics … » more CFE

Some years ago, I began to suspect that I am not the most famous Faust. Troubled, I set out … » more Fausts

Most of my work these days involves trying to understand the mistakes by the private sector and government leading to the financial crisis—I was part of some of those mistakes during my time at the Fed. Hopefully, this will contribute to better practices and policies in the future. … » more bio

My updating of this site was one of the minor casualties during the crisis. Unless and until the crisis flares again, I'll be back on track.

Policy Issues

• Checks and Balances at the Fed; Jon Faust; Wall Street Journal Digital Network, May 10, 2010.
  »get it from WSJ Digital Network
• Caveat emptor is not a business plan; Jon Faust; NYTimes online, April 26, 2010.
  »get it from NYTimes online
• TARP's 66 cent myth; Jon Faust; Wall Street Journal Digital Network, Apr. 29, 2009.
  »get it from WSJ Digital Network
• Exigent Circumstances; Bob Barbera and Jon Faust; Vox, Mar. 11, 2009.
  »get it from Vox
• How Should Fed Deal With Bubbles?; Jon Faust; Wall Street Journal Digital Network, Oct. 22, 2008.
  »get it from WSJ Digital Network
• Whither macroeconomics? The surprising success of naive GDP forecasts; Jon Faust; Vox, Jan. 31, 2008.
  »get it from Vox

Some recent work

• Efficient Prediction of Excess Returns; Faust, Jon; Jonathan H. Wright; Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming.
  »paper [pdf 337k] »abstract
• Comparing Greenbook and Reduced Form Forecasts using a Large Realtime Dataset; Faust, Jon; Jonathan H. Wright; Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Oct 2009, 27:4, 468-479.
  »get a copy »abstract »Appendix »data
• Risk premia in the 8:30 economy; Faust, Jon; Jonathan H. Wright; manuscript, 2009.
  »paper [pdf 184k] »abstract
• Forecasts, DSGE Models, and Policymaking; Jon Faust; Keynote address: Forecasting and Monetary Policy, March 23--24, 2009, Bundesbank, Berlin.
  »slides
• Comments on “Credit Market Shocks and Economic Fluctuations: Evidence from Corporate Bond and Stock Markets” by Gilchrist, Yankov, and Zakrajsek; Jon Faust; presented at NBER meeting, Mar. 2009.
  »slides
• The new macro models: washing our hands and watching for icebergs; Jon Faust; Riksbank Economic Review, 2009/1, 45--68.
  »paper [pdf 206k]
• Efficient forecast tests for conditional policy forecasts; Faust, Jon; Jonathan H. Wright; Journal of Econometrics, Oct. 2008, 146:2, 293-303.
  »get a copy »abstract
• Comments on “Issues on Potential Growth Measurement and Comparison…” by Christophe Cahn and Authur Saint-Guilhem; Jon Faust; Presented at Economic Policy Conference, FRB St. Louis, Oct. 16-17, 2008..
  »slides
• DSGE models in a second-best world of policy analysis; Jon Faust; Manuscript, 2008.
  »paper [pdf 304k] »abstract
• Comments on “Expectations, Real Exchange Rates, and Monetary Policy)” by Michael B. Devereux and Charles Engel; Jon Faust; Presented at Monetary Policy and Asset Markets, FRB San Francisco, Feb. 22, 2008..
  »slides

Hopkins

• Recent national champions: [sticks|chains]
• A great educator
• Fight song [text|audio]
• Google ‘“Wes Craven” “Wolf Blitzer”’.
• John Barry's Great Influenza has a cool discussion of Hopkins circa 1900.

Stuff

• Joys of teaching statistics
• Doing powerpoint properly.
• INTERCAL manual, Note the COME FROM command.
• Streaming Knuth on notation and, well, everything else.
• Streaming Feyman on physics and Newton's observations on observational equivalence.
• Math history, including mathematicians born in Cambridge, with 2 minor economists.
• Tiling, quasicrystalline [avi], and other practical home improvement skills.
• Another guide to practical quasicrysstalline tiling. Or is that quasi-quasi-tiling?

Cycles

• biking for Obama
• Pathbreaking work, note the price.
• Compute or cycle, why choose?
• slopes of Europe
• Time series of Lance. This article is generating controversy, amusingly, in part about a constant left out of a bi-variate regression. [ criticism][response]