Olivier Blanchard

Olivier Blanchard is a French economist whose research and policy work focus on macroeconomics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, and economic fluctuations.

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New Keynesian economics: A macroeconomic framework in which nominal rigidities allow monetary policy to affect real economic activity. This framework underlies much of Blanchard’s analysis of monetary policy and economic fluctuations.
Stanley Fischer: An economist whose research and leadership roles span macroeconomics, central banking, and international finance. Fischer was Blanchard’s doctoral adviser at MIT and a major influence on his career.
Great Recession: A severe global economic downturn beginning in 2007–2008, marked by financial distress and prolonged unemployment. Blanchard analyzed the recession’s causes and the limits of policy responses.
Fiscal multiplier: The change in economic output associated with a change in government spending or taxation. Blanchard’s IMF work helped show that crisis-era fiscal multipliers were larger than some forecasts assumed.
R-star: The unobservable real interest rate consistent with output at potential and stable inflation. Its decline complicates monetary policy, a topic Blanchard has examined in connection with secular stagnation.
Phillips curve: A relationship between inflation and economic slack, with forms that vary across models and periods. Blanchard studied how inflation responds to unemployment and expectations.
Jean Tirole: A French economist known for research on industrial organization, regulation, and economic theory. Tirole and Blanchard coauthored research on wage bargaining and unemployment in France.
Zero lower bound: A constraint arising when nominal interest rates approach zero and conventional rate cuts become difficult. Blanchard examined monetary policy when rates are constrained near zero.
Macroeconomic modeling: The construction of mathematical representations of economy-wide behavior and interactions. Blanchard has influenced debates about the usefulness and limits of standard macroeconomic models.
Secular stagnation: A prolonged condition in which desired saving persistently exceeds investment at full employment. Blanchard has engaged with the debate over persistent low interest rates and weak demand.