Carl E. Walsh


Carl Eugene Walsh, is an American economist. He has been an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1987, and Distinguished Professor of Economics and chair of the Economics Department at the university since 2010. He has also served in several positions in the Federal Reserve System.
Walsh's work is primarily in the fields of central banking and monetary policy.

Early life and education

Walsh received his B.A. in mathematics and economics in 1971 and his Ph.D. in economics in 1976, both from the University of California, Berkeley.

Career

Walsh was a lecturer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand from 1976 to 1978 and assistant professor at Princeton University from 1979 to 1985. Walsh was senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 1985 to 1987. Walsh moved to the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1987, becoming associate professor. Walsh was named full professor in 1991 and was named distinguished professor in 2010.
Walsh has held visiting appointments at several institutions, including UC Berkeley economics department, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the International Finance Division of the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the UC Berkeley School of Business, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Stanford University. Walsh was vice provost of the UC Santa Cruz's Silicon Valley Initiatives from 2005 to 2007. He is a co-editor of the International Journal of Central Banking.
Walsh is an international research fellow at Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Work

Walsh has become best known for his paper "Optimal Contracts for Central Bankers," published in 1995 in the American Economic Review. His theory is commonly referred to as the "Walsh Contract." In a 2004 speech, current Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben S. Bernanke included "Optimal Contracts for Central Bankers" as one of the three most influential papers in macroeconomics over the past 25 years. His theory has also been questioned by Francisco Candel-Sánchez and Juan Cristóbal Campoy-Miñarro. In addition, Haizhou Huang and A. Jorge Padilla have commented on the concept.

Selected publications

Walsh has written several textbooks and has authored or coauthored numerous articles and chapters, mostly scientific.