Benjamin Pugsley

Benjamin Pugsley joined Notre Dame in July of 2017 from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where he was a research economist in the Macroeconomic and Monetary Studies Function. He has previously taught in the MBA program at Columbia Business School and the undergraduate economics program at the University of Chicago. His primary research interests include macroeconomics, firm dynamics, and entrepreneurship. In particular, Benjamin studies the behavior of young and small firms and their unique role in shaping aggregate economic conditions. His research on small business formation and growth has been featured in Slate, NPR, Business Week, The New Yorker, and the Wall Street Journal. He was awarded the Kauffman Foundation Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship Research in 2017. Benjamin earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and his B.A. from Columbia University.

Areas of Interest

• Macroeconomics
• Industrial Organization
• Labor Economics

Education

• Ph.D. University of Chicago (2006 — 2012)
• M.A. University of Chicago (2006 — 2008)
• B.A. Columbia University in the City of New York (2001 — 2004)

Companies

• Assistant Professor Of Economics University of Notre Dame (2017)
• Adjunct Assistant Professor Columbia Business School (2015)
• Economist Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2012 — 2017)
• Lecturer Undergraduate College University of Chicago (2010 — 2012)
• Ph.D. Candidate Economics University of Chicago (2006 — 2012)
• Assistant Economist Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2004 — 2006)
• Senior Software Engineer RCS (2001 — 2003)
• Software Engineer RCS (2000 — 2001)

PUBLICATIONS

• “The Nature of Firm Growth” with Petr Sedlacek and Vincent Sterk, American Economic Review, 111(2), February 2021, pp 547-79.
• “Grown-up Business Cycles” with Ayşegül Sahin, Review of Financial Studies, 32(3), March 2019, pp 1102-47.
• “Older and Slower: The Startup Deficit’s Lasting Effects on Productivity Growth” with Titan Alon, David Berger and Rob Dent, Journal of Monetary Economics, 93, January 2018, pp 68-85.
• “Wealth, Tastes, and Entrepreneurship” with Erik Hurst, Chapter in NBER/CRIW volume Measuring Entrepreneurial Businesses: Current Knowledge and Challenges, editors Haltiwanger, Hurst, Miranda and Schoar. September 2017, pp 111-51.
• “Do Job to Job Transitions Drive Wage Growth over the Business Cycle” with Fatih Karahan, Ryan Michaels, Ayşegül Sahin, and Rachel Schuh, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 107(5), May 2017, pp 353-57.
• “The Role of Startups in Structural Transformation”, with Rob Dent, Fatih Karahan and Ayşegül Sahin, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 106(5), May 2016, pp 219-23.
• “Are Household Surveys Like Tax Forms: Evidence from Income Underreporting of the Self Employed,” with Erik Hurst and Geng Li, Review of Economics and Statistics, 96(1), March 2014, pp 19-33.
• “What do Small Businesses Do?” with Erik Hurst. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 43(2), Fall 2011, pp 73-142.
• “The Mistake of 1937: A General Equilibrium Analysis,” with Gauti Eggertsson. Monetary and Economic Studies, 24(S-1), Dec 2006.