A new event, co-organised by Lancaster University Management School economists, brought together leading academics and policy-makers to analyse recent macroeconomic trends.

The first Non-Linearities in Macroeconomics (NLMacro) Workshop, at the School of Economics and Finance at Queen Mary University of London, attracted more than 30 researchers across two days.

Experts from universities and central banks, including the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the US Federal Reserve, gathered to discuss recent contributions in macroeconomics and monetary policy analysis.

The workshop was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant awarded to Stefano Fasani (LUMS). It was organised by Queen Mary University, the Bank of England, and Lancaster University Management School.

Professor Paolo Surico, of London Business School, and Professor Refet Gürkaynak, of Bilkent University, Turkey, delivered the keynote speeches.

Professor Surico is a leading expert in macroeconomics. His research focuses on the linkages with financial market, monetary and fiscal policy. He is a fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and a research consultant to the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority.

During his talk, he presented a study on the persistent effects of temporary changes in corporate and personal income taxation. Adding to the debate on fiscal reform, his findings suggest that while personal income tax cuts can trigger only a short-lived boost in the economy with no long-term effects, corporate income tax cuts lead to a sustained increase in GDP and productivity, with effects peaking between five and eight years.

Professor Gürkaynak is a research fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research. He is also a fellow at CESIfo and the Center for Financial Studies. Previously, he served as economist at the Monetary Affairs Division of the Federal Reserve Board. His works are considered milestones in the macroeconomic literature, and deal with extracting information from asset prices to answer monetary policy-related questions.

Taking evidence from skyrocketing inflation and depreciated exchange rate in Turkey, Professor Gürkaynak presented a paper that formalises the recent experience of that country through the lens of a theoretical model. Living in a period of global high inflation pressure, his contribution is an alert for governments and central banks to not ignore basic macroeconomic principles when aiming to stabilise the economy.