Beyond the bio
Most people have an official bio and a more interesting unofficial bio. Here's my unofficial bio, in Q&A format.
Where are you from? For me, this is not easy to answer. I grew up in Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, and the Washington, D.C. area; my father was in the Foreign Service. My family is from Minneapolis, and though I have relatives in Minnesota and have visited often I have never lived there. I went to college in the Chicago area and grad school in Washington, D.C and Philadelphia. I lived in New Jersey longer than anywhere else, and worked in New York City longer than in any other city. I feel at home in most of those places, but none feels exactly like home. I would like to think of myself as a Floridian but the natives tell me you have to have were born here to be one.
How did you come to become an economist? It took a while to decide I wanted to go into economics, longer to persuade myself and others that I could get a PhD, and longer still to actually get the degree. I majored in economics as an undergrad because I knew it was important and sensed that not many people seemed to understand it. I did not think I had enough of a math background to go directly into a PhD program in economics after college, and I was right. So I opted instead to study in another area of interest: international relations. But about half way through the coursework for a Masters at Johns Hopkins SAIS I realized that I would need to know more math to get answers to the questions I had about how the world worked. After that the math came quickly. By the time I graduated my quantitative skills and knowledge of economics were good enough to get an entry-level job at the Federal Reserve Board.
How did you wind up on Wall Street? To the extent there is a natural career path for a market strategist it is this: Get graduate training in economics or finance; work for the Fed or another central bank; move to the economics department of a major international financial firm; then make the transition from economics to the markets. I followed that path step by step, even though it is not what I had planned to do at the outset. When I left the Philadelphia Fed in 1985 for a job at JP Morgan, for example, I told my colleagues that I intended to work on Wall Street only for a year or two, and then come back to the Federal Reserve System with a deeper understanding of how financial markets work. I actually believed I would do that; I don’t think anyone else did.
Once on Wall Street it is hard to leave. The compensation — especially the possibility of huge bonuses — is too alluring, and working on the Street is intoxicating. Some of the finest people I have met work on Wall Street; so do others I can only describe as reptilian. The stories about the long hours are not exaggerated. And the travel can come to dominate your life, to the point that living and working out of hotel rooms and airport lounges feels normal. Work-life balance does not exist for most people who work on Wall Street; it certainly did not for me.
What does a market strategist do? A firm's market or investment strategist turns an economic outlook into investment recommendations, then communicates them to the firm’s clients and the public. Most major financial firms have market strategists, though it is not a widely recognized profession and it does not have a professional association. Usually market strategists rely on economic forecasts prepared by others — ideally the firm's own economists — though they often have their own views on the outlook. The public affairs aspect of the job can be important, and market strategists often appear in the print and broadcast media. The value of such appearances — other than keeping the firm’s name in front of the public — varies. An interview about one's recent research can do a lot to enhance the public dialogue about complex issues, in my view; getting in a sound bite or two on a television appearance on a panel of commentators does not.
The transition from economist to strategist, by the way, is not a natural one. Many economists think they know a great deal about financial markets and some do. But understanding what drives inflation, employment, or output does not guarantee any insight into the markets. I thought I understood stock markets at the time I moved from JP Morgan’s economics department into a job as an Emerging Markets Strategist at Salomon Smith Barney in 1997. In retrospect, about 95% of what I know about equities I learned since taking that job, most of it within the first year or two.
How did you come to teach at the University of Florida? I had taught MBA and undergraduate courses in finance at Wharton while working on my PhD and later at New York University’s business school while working on Wall Street. I also continued to publish occasionally in academic journals, even though that is not part of anyone's job description at an investment bank. My (faulty) recollection is that the decision to leave Wall Street was made for me by the tsunami that hit financial markets in 2008-09. That may have been the catalyst, but not long ago I ran across an e-mail chain that shows I had been looking into an academic job, preferably in Florida, months before the crisis. I had always had a number of research ideas I had wanted to pursue but could not find the time to do so while working on Wall Street. I enjoy teaching. I was looking for a life style that provided more flexibility and less travel. While I do not regret working on Wall Street, after many years I was not sure what more I was going to accomplish there. A move into a teaching job made a lot of sense.
Note: Teaching full time and having an active research program does not mean short hours and a leisurely life-style. Moreover, there is an administrative load that tends to increase over time. Any time found to concentrate on research quickly becomes precious. The flexibility in the hours, however, is a big plus.
You used to appear often in the media, including national television, as a market strategist for Cetera Financial Group after coming to UF. How did that work? I had a consulting relationship with Cetera Financial Group, a financial advisory and brokerage firm headquartered in Los Angeles. I did market strategy for them — basically the same job I did full-time while at ING Investment Management. Appearing in the press was part of the job. Another part of the job was serving as a member of Cetera’s Investment Committee, which makes asset allocation decisions that affect about $20 billion of the firm’s approximately $100 billion in assets under administration. Doing market strategy forced me to keep abreast of economic and market developments. I think it helped a lot in teaching graduate business courses at the Master’s level, which are applied by nature. My contract with Cetera ended when I became head of the Latin American Business Environment Program at UF in 2016. I still do interviews for the print media and appear on local television programs on Florida stations on behalf of UF.
Between 2013 and 2019 you taught classes in Latin American Studies. How did that fit in? I viewed it as a natural outcome of a lifelong interest in the emerging markets — beginning with a large chunk of my childhood spent in Latin America. I specialized in Latin American studies while getting a Master’s from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. I jumped at the chance to head up the new emerging markets economics group at JP Morgan in the early 1990s as capital was flowing in mass back into developing countries. I spent a great deal of time traveling in Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East in strategy jobs at Salomon Smith Barney (Citigroup) and ING Investment management. My position as Director of the Latin
What research are you doing? I am finishing up two papers on the interwar years (1914-41). One is on the question of whether the Federal Reserve closed the discount window during the Great Depression, therefore abandoning its lender of last resort function (my conclusion is they did tighten access to the discount window). The other is building a new corporate bond index for the 1914-41 period. None of the existing indices include data on transactions costs (bid-ask spreads), which I believe are crucial to understanding the liquidity crises of the era. I am starting a project that seeks to sort out what drove the huge rise in emerging market stock prices since 2000. I am also working on a paper trying to explain why mutual fund flows are useful in forecasting future stock returns in the emerging markets. Away from finance, I am looking into a little known episode of local history concerning an attempt by Garth James, brother of novelist Henry James and psychologist and philosopher William James, to establish a utopian community for freed and former slaves near Gainesville, Florida shortly after the Civil War.
What do you do when not teaching or doing research? I manage to find time to swim in the warmer months and to do some scuba diving in North Florida’s many springs. I have taken up karate again for the first time since I was in my 30s and an advancing in rank (they have an Executive class). I read voraciously, but that is something I have always done. I accompany my wife on antiquing forays. I plan to do more birding, bicycling, sailing, and photography. I am on the Finance Committee of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. (The finance committee membership may not be a surprise to my friends; the involvement in a church definitely is).
Most people have an official bio and a more interesting unofficial bio. Here's my unofficial bio, in Q&A format.
Where are you from? For me, this is not easy to answer. I grew up in Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, and the Washington, D.C. area; my father was in the Foreign Service. My family is from Minneapolis, and though I have relatives in Minnesota and have visited often I have never lived there. I went to college in the Chicago area and grad school in Washington, D.C and Philadelphia. I lived in New Jersey longer than anywhere else, and worked in New York City longer than in any other city. I feel at home in most of those places, but none feels exactly like home. I would like to think of myself as a Floridian but the natives tell me you have to have were born here to be one.
How did you come to become an economist? It took a while to decide I wanted to go into economics, longer to persuade myself and others that I could get a PhD, and longer still to actually get the degree. I majored in economics as an undergrad because I knew it was important and sensed that not many people seemed to understand it. I did not think I had enough of a math background to go directly into a PhD program in economics after college, and I was right. So I opted instead to study in another area of interest: international relations. But about half way through the coursework for a Masters at Johns Hopkins SAIS I realized that I would need to know more math to get answers to the questions I had about how the world worked. After that the math came quickly. By the time I graduated my quantitative skills and knowledge of economics were good enough to get an entry-level job at the Federal Reserve Board.
How did you wind up on Wall Street? To the extent there is a natural career path for a market strategist it is this: Get graduate training in economics or finance; work for the Fed or another central bank; move to the economics department of a major international financial firm; then make the transition from economics to the markets. I followed that path step by step, even though it is not what I had planned to do at the outset. When I left the Philadelphia Fed in 1985 for a job at JP Morgan, for example, I told my colleagues that I intended to work on Wall Street only for a year or two, and then come back to the Federal Reserve System with a deeper understanding of how financial markets work. I actually believed I would do that; I don’t think anyone else did.
Once on Wall Street it is hard to leave. The compensation — especially the possibility of huge bonuses — is too alluring, and working on the Street is intoxicating. Some of the finest people I have met work on Wall Street; so do others I can only describe as reptilian. The stories about the long hours are not exaggerated. And the travel can come to dominate your life, to the point that living and working out of hotel rooms and airport lounges feels normal. Work-life balance does not exist for most people who work on Wall Street; it certainly did not for me.
What does a market strategist do? A firm's market or investment strategist turns an economic outlook into investment recommendations, then communicates them to the firm’s clients and the public. Most major financial firms have market strategists, though it is not a widely recognized profession and it does not have a professional association. Usually market strategists rely on economic forecasts prepared by others — ideally the firm's own economists — though they often have their own views on the outlook. The public affairs aspect of the job can be important, and market strategists often appear in the print and broadcast media. The value of such appearances — other than keeping the firm’s name in front of the public — varies. An interview about one's recent research can do a lot to enhance the public dialogue about complex issues, in my view; getting in a sound bite or two on a television appearance on a panel of commentators does not.
The transition from economist to strategist, by the way, is not a natural one. Many economists think they know a great deal about financial markets and some do. But understanding what drives inflation, employment, or output does not guarantee any insight into the markets. I thought I understood stock markets at the time I moved from JP Morgan’s economics department into a job as an Emerging Markets Strategist at Salomon Smith Barney in 1997. In retrospect, about 95% of what I know about equities I learned since taking that job, most of it within the first year or two.
How did you come to teach at the University of Florida? I had taught MBA and undergraduate courses in finance at Wharton while working on my PhD and later at New York University’s business school while working on Wall Street. I also continued to publish occasionally in academic journals, even though that is not part of anyone's job description at an investment bank. My (faulty) recollection is that the decision to leave Wall Street was made for me by the tsunami that hit financial markets in 2008-09. That may have been the catalyst, but not long ago I ran across an e-mail chain that shows I had been looking into an academic job, preferably in Florida, months before the crisis. I had always had a number of research ideas I had wanted to pursue but could not find the time to do so while working on Wall Street. I enjoy teaching. I was looking for a life style that provided more flexibility and less travel. While I do not regret working on Wall Street, after many years I was not sure what more I was going to accomplish there. A move into a teaching job made a lot of sense.
Note: Teaching full time and having an active research program does not mean short hours and a leisurely life-style. Moreover, there is an administrative load that tends to increase over time. Any time found to concentrate on research quickly becomes precious. The flexibility in the hours, however, is a big plus.
You used to appear often in the media, including national television, as a market strategist for Cetera Financial Group after coming to UF. How did that work? I had a consulting relationship with Cetera Financial Group, a financial advisory and brokerage firm headquartered in Los Angeles. I did market strategy for them — basically the same job I did full-time while at ING Investment Management. Appearing in the press was part of the job. Another part of the job was serving as a member of Cetera’s Investment Committee, which makes asset allocation decisions that affect about $20 billion of the firm’s approximately $100 billion in assets under administration. Doing market strategy forced me to keep abreast of economic and market developments. I think it helped a lot in teaching graduate business courses at the Master’s level, which are applied by nature. My contract with Cetera ended when I became head of the Latin American Business Environment Program at UF in 2016. I still do interviews for the print media and appear on local television programs on Florida stations on behalf of UF.
Between 2013 and 2019 you taught classes in Latin American Studies. How did that fit in? I viewed it as a natural outcome of a lifelong interest in the emerging markets — beginning with a large chunk of my childhood spent in Latin America. I specialized in Latin American studies while getting a Master’s from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. I jumped at the chance to head up the new emerging markets economics group at JP Morgan in the early 1990s as capital was flowing in mass back into developing countries. I spent a great deal of time traveling in Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East in strategy jobs at Salomon Smith Barney (Citigroup) and ING Investment management. My position as Director of the Latin
What research are you doing? I am finishing up two papers on the interwar years (1914-41). One is on the question of whether the Federal Reserve closed the discount window during the Great Depression, therefore abandoning its lender of last resort function (my conclusion is they did tighten access to the discount window). The other is building a new corporate bond index for the 1914-41 period. None of the existing indices include data on transactions costs (bid-ask spreads), which I believe are crucial to understanding the liquidity crises of the era. I am starting a project that seeks to sort out what drove the huge rise in emerging market stock prices since 2000. I am also working on a paper trying to explain why mutual fund flows are useful in forecasting future stock returns in the emerging markets. Away from finance, I am looking into a little known episode of local history concerning an attempt by Garth James, brother of novelist Henry James and psychologist and philosopher William James, to establish a utopian community for freed and former slaves near Gainesville, Florida shortly after the Civil War.
What do you do when not teaching or doing research? I manage to find time to swim in the warmer months and to do some scuba diving in North Florida’s many springs. I have taken up karate again for the first time since I was in my 30s and an advancing in rank (they have an Executive class). I read voraciously, but that is something I have always done. I accompany my wife on antiquing forays. I plan to do more birding, bicycling, sailing, and photography. I am on the Finance Committee of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. (The finance committee membership may not be a surprise to my friends; the involvement in a church definitely is).