Supply Chain Workshop

Aleh Tsyvinski is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics and Management at Yale’s Department of Economics. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from the University of Minnesota. 

Faculty Profile

Ernest Liu is an Assistant Professor in Princeton’s Department of Economics. His research interests are in finance, growth, and macro-development. Ernest Liu’s research is centered around the implications of weak financial institutions for economic growth, allocation of resources, and economic development. One strand of his work uses production network theory to understand industrial policies, specifically the strong government support for upstream industries that are widely adopted in developing economies. Another strand of work shows how low, long-term interest rates affect market concentration and productivity growth; how banks with market power respond to interest rate ceilings in small business lending; and how financial market imperfections not only distort economic allocations via underinvestment but may greatly amplify effects due to interactions across economic sectors or because the relationships between borrowers and lenders create under-development traps. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from MIT and joined Princeton’s faculty in 2019.

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Nitya Pandalai-Nayar is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the International Economics Section at Princeton. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan, a Masters in Economics from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Mathematics from Wellesley College. Her research focuses on multinationals, business cycle spillovers, and the consequences of globalization and has been published in journals such as the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of the European Economic Association.

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Diego Comin is a Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is also a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research and a Faculty Research Fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research's Economic Fluctuations and Growth Program.

Professor Comin has published multiple articles in top economic journals on the topics of business cycles, technology diffusion, economic growth, structural transformations and firm volatility. He has also authored case studies published in the book Drivers of Competitiveness. Comin's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the European Commission, the Gates Foundation, the C.V. Star Foundation, INET and the Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW).

Comin is the Co-lead of the Firms and Technology program at the World Bank. Additionally, he is a founding partner of Linktia, and has co-founded the Malaysian Public-Private Research Network (PPRN), a public institution that provided solutions to companies' technological problems by matching them with researchers that were experts in the relevant field.

Comin has developed macroeconomic models of technology and business cycles for the design of policies at the European Central Bank (ECB), and the European Commission. Additionally, Comin has advised the Prime Minister of Malaysia, and been a consultant for the IMF, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Citibank, Danish Science Ministry, and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) of the government of Japan. Recently, Microsoft has used the models of technology diffusion developed in Comin and Hobijn (2010) to forecast the diffusion of their cloud services.

Professor Comin received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 2000. Since then, he has been Assistant Professor of Economics at New York University and Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School (HBS) where he taught both in the MBA and in executive programs. He has also designed and led immersion programs in Peru, China and Malaysia for which he received the Apgar Prize for Innovation in Teaching.

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Robert C. Johnson is an international economist, working at the intersection of international trade and macroeconomics. His research explores how the rise of global value chains shapes trade and macroeconomic interdependence between countries. Robert is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an Associate Editor at the Journal of International Economics and Journal of Development Economics. He has previously served as a consultant and visiting scholar at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as an Associate Editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association. Prior to arriving at Notre Dame in 2018, Robert was an Associate Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. Robert received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, a MSc. in Global Market Economics from the London School of Economics, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University.

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Callum Jones is the Principal Economist at the Federal Reserve Board in the Monetary Studies Section. Previously, he served as the Senior Economist. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from New York University in 2017.

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Matt Elliott is Professor of Economics at Cambridge University and fellow of Jesus College Cambridge. Before that he was Assistant Professor of Economics at the California Institute of Technology and postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, New England Research and Development (NERD). He is associate editor at Econometrica and serves on the editorial board at the Review of Economic Studies. In 2017 he was awarded the British Academy Wiley Prize in Economics, and in 2012 the Aliprantis Prize (joint with Professor Ben Golub) awarded by the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory. He was educated at Oxford University and then Stanford University, where he received his Ph.D.

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Francesco Zanetti is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford and the David Richards Fellow of Wadham College. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston College, and a Ph.D. in Economic Theory and Institutions from the University of Bologna. Before joining Oxford in September 2012, he spent eight years in the Bank of England, first as an Economist, Senior Economist and Advisor in the Monetary Analysis Section. He is a visiting scholar at the Bank of International Settlements, the Bank of England and provided technical support and training to more than forty central banks around the world. He held visiting teaching positions at the London School of Economics, London Business School, and the joint IMF Vienna Institute. 

His research interests are in the fields of Macroeconomics, Monetary Economics and Applied Econometrics. Among other topics, he has worked on labor market dynamics and the effect of structural reforms, the propagation of news shocks, the state dependence of fiscal multipliers, and the impact of unconventional policies. He is a recipient of the British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for the academic year 2020-2021. His past research was supported by the British Academy, Leverhulme Foundation, the Australian Research Cancil, the Zengin Foundation, and the John Fell Fund. He serves as an associate editor for the Economic Journal, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Oxford Economic Papers, as a co-editor for Macroeconomic Dynamics, and as a member of the editorial board for Central Bank Review. His research has appeared in leading academic journals and policy forums.

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Vladimir Smirnyagin is a macroeconomist whose research interests lie at the quantitative nexus of macroeconomics and finance. In his work, he combines large, comprehensive datasets with quantitative models to answer important questions in macro-finance. Vladimir's current research focuses on the macroeconomic analysis of supply chain disruptions and environmental regulations. Prior to joining the University of Virginia, he was a postdoctoral associate at Yale University.

Smirnyagin holds a B.A. in economics from Russia’s Higher School of Economics, an M.A. from the New Economic School, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. As a doctoral candidate, he worked as a research analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and he spent several months at the Bank of England as an academic visitor. His work has been supported by the Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute and by the Tobin Center for Economic Policy at Yale

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Viral V. Acharya is the C.V. Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business (NYU-Stern). He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Corporate Finance, a Research Affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). Viral was a Resident Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Sep 2022-Jan 2023) and a Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during 23rd January 2017 to 23rd July 2019 in charge of Monetary Policy, Financial Markets, Financial Stability, and Research.

Viral’s primary research interest is in theoretical and empirical analysis of systemic risk of the financial sector, its regulation, and its genesis in government- and policy-induced distortions, an inquiry that also examines the interaction of credit and liquidity risks, their agency-theoretic foundations, and their general equilibrium consequences. In recent work, he has also explored the impact of pandemic and climate-changed related risks. Viral received the Alexandre Lamfalussy Senior Research Fellowship of the Bank for International Settlements in 2017, the inaugural Banque de France – Toulouse School of Economics Junior Prize in Monetary Economics and Finance in 2011, and the Senior Houblon-Normal Research Fellowship at the Bank of England in Summer 2008. He has been a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher, 2020-22, and his articles have won several best paper prizes at journals and conferences.

Viral is currently an editor of the Journal of Law, Finance and Accounting (2014-16, 2020-), a member of the Editorial Committee of the Annual Review of Financial Economics (2022-), and a Board member of the American Finance Association (2024-) and Financial Intermediation Research Society (2023-). He was earlier an editor of the Journal of Financial Intermediation (2009-12), associate editor of the Journal of Finance (2011-14), and a Director of the Western Finance Association (2012-2015). He is presently a Scientific Advisor to the Sveriges Riksbank since February 2024, a member of the Climate-related Financial Risk Advisory Committee (CFRAC) of the Financial Stability Oversight Council for 2023-26, an invited member of the Bellagio Group of academics and policy-makers from central banks and finance ministries since 2021, and a member of the Financial Advisory Roundtable (FAR) of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2020. He is or has been an Academic Advisor to the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York and Philadelphia, and the Board of Governors, and has provided Academic Expert service to the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Viral completed Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai in 1995 and Ph.D. in Finance from NYU-Stern in 2001.

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Tim Eisert is an Associate Professor of Finance and a CEPR Research Affiliate. He studies financial intermediation, monetary policy, and corporate finance. His work has been published in leading academic journals including the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies, and Management Science. Tim earned his Ph.D. from Goethe University in 2014, an Assistant and Associate professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

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Benjamin Gordon is founder and Managing Partner of Cambridge Capital, a specialist private equity firm that invests in logistics and supply chain companies. He draws on a career building, advising, and funding supply chain companies. Benjamin has led investments in outstanding firms including XPO, Grand Junction, ReverseLogix, and others.

Prior to Cambridge Capital, Benjamin built BGSA Holdings into a global leader in M&A for the supply chain sector. As CEO of BGSA, Benjamin led the firm’s efforts, advising on over $2 billion worth of supply chain transactions. Benjamin has worked with firms such as UPS, DHL, Kuehne & Nagel, Agility Logistics, NFI Logistics, GENCO, Nations Express, Raytrans, Echo Global, Dixie, Wilpak, and others.

Prior to BGSA Holdings, Ben founded 3PLex, the Internet solution enabling third-party logistics companies to automate their business. Benjamin raised $28 million from blue-chip investors including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, BancBoston Ventures, CNF, and Ionian. 3PLex was then purchased by Maersk. Prior to 3PLex, Benjamin advised transportation and logistics clients at Mercer Management Consulting. Prior to Mercer, Benjamin worked in his family’s transportation business, AMI, where he helped the company expand its logistics operations.

Benjamin is an active civic leader who is committed to giving back to the community. As founder and chairman of GesherCity, he boosted young adult volunteerism, expanding the organization to over 100,000 members in twenty locations. Benjamin has also served on the Boards of several non-profit groups, including the Palm Beach United Way, the Palm Beach Federation, the Palm Beach Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), the JDC, the JCCA, the Middle East Forum, and various other community organizations.

Benjamin received a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale College.

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