His research focuses on theoretical and empirical models of macroeconomic policy, with special emphasis on monetary-fiscal policy interactions. One line of work focuses on a new mechanism—called the “fiscal theory of the price level”—by which fiscal policy can influence economic activity and inflation. Recent research examines the economic impacts of government spending, the macroeconomic consequences of alternative resolutions to long-run fiscal imbalances, and the modeling of the “fiscal limit” and sovereign risk.
Leeper received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1989 and a B.S. in economics from George Mason University in 1980. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia, Leeper spent 23 years at Indiana University and eight years in the Federal Reserve System. Leeper was born in Isfahan, Iran, and spent his school-age years in Taiwan, Malaysia, Seattle, Hong Kong, and Northern Virginia.
Leeper’s current research focuses on the policies that allowed the United States to recover from the Great Depression and projects about fiscal inertia and monetary-fiscal interactions in heterogeneous-consumer environments.
FIELDS OF INTEREST
Macroeconomics, Monetary and Fiscal Policy Analysis, Applied Time Series
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Science (BS) George Mason University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of Minnesota