PRR Project

Summary

The position holder is expected to contribute to teaching in the School’s programmes, particularly in their area of expertise, namely macroeconomics, housing, and monetary policy. They are also expected to produce scholarly research of significant impact and quality that can be published in the best scientific journals in the respective fields or with similar quality general interest journals. They will also be expected to take a leading role in the supervision of MSc and PhD students, to apply for competitive internal and external funding to provide further support for their research, and to contribute to the collaborative research environment at our institution.Applicants should have a consolidated international reputation and expertise in the fields of macroeconomics, housing and monetary policy; a portfolio of research publications in the fields of expertise at high-quality journals; experience in preparing grant applications for submission; experience training undergraduate and postgraduate students; experience of supervision of higher degrees (master’s and PhD); a promising research pipeline; ability to communicate well, conveying ideas and concepts clearly and effectively; a high level of analytical capability; good organizational and management skills; ability to work within a multidisciplinary team; collaborative skills and ability to establish productive internal and external working relationships; ability to develop skills in leading, motivating, developing and managing the performance of colleagues.By the end of the 20th century, housing as a topic was so irrelevant to macroeconomics that, as noted by Piazzesi and Schneider (2016) in the 1999 Handbook of Macroeconomics, there was no reference to it. Since then, and largely thanks to the 2007 housing bust in the United States, there has been a boom in research looking at different aspects of housing. In particular, the literature has looked deeply at how these aspects may matter for the macroeconomy.This surge in research on housing and its connection to the macroeconomy has led to valuable insights and a better understanding of the role housing plays in shaping economic outcomes. Scholars have examined how fluctuations in house prices can impact consumer spending, investment, and overall economic stability. Additionally, the relationship between housing affordability and monetary policy has been a topic of great interest as policymakers strive to balance promoting economic growth and maintaining financial stability. As a result, the study of housing economics has gained prominence in academic and policy circles, with a growing emphasis on its implications for various economic issues.Given the recent developments in inflation and monetary policy, the interplay between monetary policy, interest rates, house prices, and housing affordability has become increasingly important in the policy arena and has raised interest in our students and our interactions with society at large.In addition, structural methods and high-frequency data that are being increasingly applied to study these topics also contribute to the growing recognition of housing economics as a vital field of study. Using structural methods allows researchers to analyze the impact of different factors on housing affordability, such as changes in interest rates or monetary policy. Furthermore, the availability of high-frequency data enables economists to track these variables in real time, providing valuable insights into the dynamics of the housing market. As a result, the relevance of housing economics in understanding and addressing economic issues continues to expand, attracting attention from both scholars and policymakers alike.In the last few years, our two full professors in the field of Macroeconomics retired, namely Professors Jorge Braga de Macedo and Luis Campos e Cunha, leading Portuguese macroeconomists of their generation. Our institution is therefore in need of hiring promising scholars who have the potential to become leading macroeconomists and bring the macroeconomics teaching and research at our institution to the frontier in areas that are key for today’s societal challenges, such as housing and monetary policy, with modern methods consistent with best practices in research.Piazzesi, M., & Schneider, M. (2016). Housing and macroeconomics. Handbook of macroeconomics, 2, 1547-1640.