Author Archives: Thomas Coleman

About Thomas Coleman

Thomas S. Coleman is Senior Advisor at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics and Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Prior to returning to academia, Mr. Coleman worked in the finance industry for more than twenty years with considerable experience in trading, risk management, and quantitative modeling. Mr. Coleman earned a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and a BA in physics from Harvard College.

Personal Income and Consumption

Summary I have argued for some time that a robust recovery will occur after households adjust spending downwards. I believe that households must adjust spending down to reflect levels of lifetime wealth that are lower, after the global financial crises … Continue reading

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A Practical Guide to Risk Management

Published by the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute in July 2011, this monograph challenges the conventional wisdom that “risk management” is or ever should be delegated to a separate department. Good managers have always known that managing risk is … Continue reading

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A Guide to Duration, DV01, and Yield Curve Risk Transformations

Yield curve risk and sensitivities (DV01s) can be measured with respect to different variables: forward rates, par rates, zero yields, or others. This paper describes a simple method for transforming sensitivities between alternate representations and provides examples. The benefit of … Continue reading

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Probability, Expected Utility, and the Ellsberg Paradox

The Ellsberg paradox is often cited as evidence for unknowable “ambiguity” versus computable “risk”, and a refutation of expected utility maximization and “subjective” or “belief-type” probabilities. I have concluded the paradox is not convincing. The results can be explained by … Continue reading

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Black Swans and Brown Turkeys

Black Swans and Brown Turkeys The term Black Swan was introduced by Taleb to denote an event not only unexpected but not even considered within the realm of possibility – something so unexpected that it completely changes the terms of … Continue reading

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Personal Income and Consumption

Summary September personal income figures released yesterday show an increase in spending relative to income. This is not good news because the higher spending means savings rates are down and household de-leveraging and spending adjustments are not proceeding. In my … Continue reading

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Personal Income and Consumption

Summary July personal income figures released today show an increase in spending relative to income. This is not good news because the higher spending means savings rates are down and household de-leveraging and spending adjustments are not proceeding. Furthermore, revisions … Continue reading

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Personal Income and Consumption

Summary Personal income figures released today are some of the best economic news to come out recently, contrary to what most commentators have claimed. The headlines report that spending and income has stagnated, but the real news is in the … Continue reading

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Employment and Unemployment Flows

This is the summary of a 45-page paper (.pdf) available for download at SSRN SUMMARY Unemployment in the U.S. has risen dramatically since the start of the recession in December 2007, going from about 6.8 million people in May 2007 … Continue reading

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Managing a Sovereign Wealth Fund: A View from Practitioners

This chapter, co-authored with D. Darcet and M. du Jeu, is in Economics of Sovereign Wealth Funds: Issues for Policymakers, ed. U. S. Das, A. Mazarei, H. van der Hoorn, published by the IMF.

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