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Cosmin L. Ilut

Professor of Economics
Economics
Box 90097, Durham, NC 27708-0097
238 Social Sciences, Box 90097, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


Professor Ilut’s major fields of interest are macroeconomics, international finance, asset pricing, and economics of information. Specifically, he focuses on the role of expectations and how agents incorporate information. He is currently focusing on settings in which agents face model uncertainty. Based on decision theoretical foundations (ambiguity aversion), he studies the role of such uncertainties for understanding macroeconomic issues like business cycle fluctuations, asset pricing and optimal policy.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Professor of Economics · 2022 - Present Economics, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Recent Publications


Diagnostic Business Cycles

Journal Article Review of Economic Studies · January 1, 2024 A large psychology literature argues that, due to selective memory recall, decision-makers' forecasts of the future are overly influenced by the perceived news. We adopt the diagnostic expectations (DE) paradigm [Bordalo et al. (2018), Journal of Finance, ... Full text Cite

Economic Agents as Imperfect Problem Solvers

Journal Article Quarterly Journal of Economics · February 1, 2023 We develop a novel bounded rationality model of imperfect reasoning as the interaction between automatic (System 1) and analytical (System 2) thinking. In doing so, we formalize the empirical consensus of cognitive psychology using a structural, constraine ... Full text Cite

Ambiguity

Chapter · January 1, 2022 We survey the literature on ambiguity with an emphasis on recent applications in macroeconomics and finance. Like risk, ambiguity leads to cautious behavior and uncertainty premia in asset markets. Unlike risk, ambiguity can generate first-order welfare lo ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


Collaborative Research: Diagnostic Expectations, Uncertainty, and Macroeconomic Fluctuations

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2024 - 2027

Cognitively Costly Decision Making by Economic Agents: Micro and Macro Implications

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2018 - 2022

Ambiguity, Business Cycle Dynamics and Optimal Policy

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2013 - 2015

View All Grants

Education, Training & Certifications


Northwestern University · 2009 Ph.D.
Northwestern University · 2005 M.A.

External Links


Personal Website