Pascal Michaillat

Pascal Michaillat is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research focuses on economic slack, particularly unemployment dynamics and macroeconomic policy responses. His work bridges macroeconomic theory with real-world policy applications, emphasizing the role of unemployment and vacancy rates in shaping economic outcomes.

Key research themes include recession detection mechanisms, migration impacts on labor markets, and the development of robust statistical methodologies like the 'Michez rule' for real-time economic analysis. He has collaborated extensively on resolving theoretical anomalies in New Keynesian models and contributed to frameworks for optimal unemployment insurance design.

Michaillat's recent work addresses methodological rigor in hypothesis testing, proposing critical values to mitigate p-hacking in scientific research. This work, co-authored with Adam McCloskey, was published in the Review of Economics and Statistics and includes open-source MATLAB code for reproducibility. His interdisciplinary approach integrates labor economics, business cycle analysis, and econometric modeling to inform policy decisions.

Notable contributions include the Beveridgean Phillips curve framework and the geometric unemployment-vacancy relationship (u∗=√uv), which provide benchmarks for full employment. His research emphasizes cyclical unemployment's role in shaping fiscal and monetary policy effectiveness, particularly during economic downturns.