Thomas Herndon

Assistant Professor of Economics | Loyola Marymount University

Los Angeles, CA, UNITED STATES

Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts

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Biography

Professor Thomas Herndon earned his B.A. in Economics from the Evergreen State College in 2007, and his Ph.D. in Economics in 2016 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research spans the fields of Macroeconomics, Political Economy, Econometrics, and Money and Banking. This research uses empirical and historical methods to analyze the macroeconomic and political economic questions of distribution, instability, and growth within the framework of the economy’s interlocking balance sheets. His research has garnered attention by contributing to debates within economics and policy-making circles. His research has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, The Economist, Rolling Stone, and the Colbert Report. In 2013, he was selected for the awards, “Bostonian of the Year Honorable Mention,” from the Boston Globe, and “Leading 100 Global Thinkers,” from Foreign Policy.

Education (2)

University of Massachusetts, Amherst: Ph.D., Economics 2016

The Evergreen State College: B.A., Economics 2007

Areas of Expertise (5)

Political Economy

Macroeconomics

Money and Banking

Applied Econometrics

Heterodox Approaches to Economics

Accomplishments (7)

Most Valuable Professor

Baseball Team, Loyola Marymount University, 2018

Teacher of the Year Award

Economics Department, Loyola Marymount University, 2017

Citation of Excellence

Emerald Publishing, 2017 http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/authors/literati/citations/awards.htm?id=2017.

John Kenneth Galbraith Prize for Dissertation Research

Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2014

Leading 100 Global Thinkers

Foreign Policy, 2013 http://2013-global-thinkers.foreignpolicy.com/

Albert O. Hirschmann “Albie” Award for Best Writing in Global Political Economy

Foreign Policy, 2013 http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/12/31/presenting-the-albies-of-2013/

Bostonian of the Year Honorable Mention

Boston Globe, 2013 https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/12/22/bostonians-year-honorable-mentions/PQbwVNvFnmMnGRcfEdjZLL/story.html

Affiliations (14)

Cambridge Journal of Economics (Referee)
Review of Political Economy (Referee)
Competition and Change (Referee)
International Journal of Sustainable Development (Referee)
International Journal of Public Policy (Referee)
International Review of Economics and Finance (Referee)
Journal of Economic Policy Reform (Referee)
Journal of Globalization and Development (Referee)
Rationality and Society (Referee)
Review of Social Economics (Referee)
Southern Economic Journal (Referee)
Structural Change and Economic Dynamics (Referee)
Center for Popular Economics (Staff Economist)
Graduate Employee Organization, United Auto Workers Local 2322 (Economics Department Steward, Steering Committee Member and Executive Board)

Links (12)

Media Appearances (2)

Austerity's Spreadsheet Errors -Thomas Herndon

The Colbert Report tv

2013-04-23

Graduate student Thomas Herndon identifies little staggering omissions in a prominent academic paper, "Growth in a Time of Debt."

Interview with Joe Weisenthal, "What'd You Miss"

Bloomberg News tv

2018-08-17

48:50 of this clip

Event Appearances (17)

A Public Banking Option as a Mode of Regulation for Household Financial Services in the United States

Plenary presentation at Consumer Federation of America Annual Conference Washington D.C., Dec 2019

Fraud and Misrepresentation in Privately Securitized Auto Loans

Invited presentation, St. Louis Federal Reserve St. Louis, November 2019

Institute for New Economic Thinking Young Scholars Initiative North American Convening

Faculty Mentor University of Southern California, Los Angeles, February 2019

A Public Banking Option as a Mode of Regulation for Household Financial Services in the United States

Association for the Promotion of Political Economy and Law (APPEAL) "Money as a Democratic Medium" Conference Harvard Law School, Cambridge, December 2018

"Designing a Carbon Tax Dividend" by Donald Marron

Discussant, Tax Policy Colloquium Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, November 2018

The Distribution of Risk and the Great Recession: Old Problems, New Crises

Tipping Points III: Debt Financed Homeownership: It's Evolution, Impact, and Future Policy Research Symposium, Washington DC, October 2018

A Public Banking Option as a Mode of Regulation for Household Financial Services in the United States

Union for Radical Political Economics 50th Anniversary Conference and Celebration University of Massachusetts, September 2018

Mortgage Fraud and the Great Recession

Economic Justice Speaker Series Department of Economics, John Jay School of Criminal Justice CUNY, March 2018

Punishment or Forgiveness? Loan Modifications in Private Label Residential Mortgage Backed Securities from 2008-2014

Macroeconomics Seminar New School for Social Research Department of Economics, March 2018

Expert Panelist

Teach-in with Congressman Mark Takano Irvine, California, February 2018

Expert Panelist

Community Meeting Regarding the 2017 Federal Tax Bill with Congresswoman Maxine Waters Westchester, California, January 2018

A Public Banking Option in the United States

Post-Crisis Economic Strains and Policy in Europe and the US Association for Social Economics at the American Economic Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, January 2018

Expert Discussant for Tax Reform Panel

Town Hall Meeting with Congresswoman Maxine Waters, December 2017 Los Angeles Harbor College

Punishment or Forgiveness? Loan Modifications in Private Label Residential Mortgage Backed Securities from 2008-2014

Economics Seminar Series Loyola Marymount University, November 2017

Punishment or Forgiveness? Loan Modifications in Private Label Residential Mortgage Backed Securities from 2008-2014

Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts Faculty Research Symposium Loyola Marymount University, November 2017

When Economics Goes Viral

Keynote Speaker, Festival for New Economic Thinking Edinburgh, Scotland, October 2017

Mortgage Fraud, Liar's Loans, and the Great Recession

Invited Talk for Department of Economics University of Missouri, Kansas City, April 2017

Research Grants (1)

Fraud and Misrepresentation in Privately Securitized Auto Loans

Institute for New Economic Thinking

2019-2020

Courses (3)

Intermediate Macroeconomics

ECON 3200

Advanced Econometrics

ECON 5320

Capitalism and its Discontents

FFYS 1000

Articles (7)

Liar’s Loans, Mortgage Fraud, and the Great Recession

Review of Political Economy

Forthcoming 2020

A Public Banking Option as a Mode of Regulation for Household Financial Services in the United States

Journal of Post Keynesian Econonics

with Mark Paul

Forthcoming 2020

The revenue potential of a financial transaction tax for US financial markets

International Review of Applied Economics

with Robert Pollin and James Heintz

2018, 32:6, 772-806

Does high public debt consistently stifle economic growth? A critique of Reinhart and Rogoff

Cambridge Journal of Economics

with Michael Ash and Robert Pollin

2014, vol. 38, issue 2, 257-279

"Punishment or Forgiveness? Loan Modifications in Private Label Residential Mortgage Backed Securities from 2008-2014

PERI: University of Massachusetts Amherst

Thomas Herndon

2017-10-17

I estimate the extent to which modifications of privately securitized mortgages increased or forgave debt during the Great Recession and aftermath, from 2008-2014. I find that loan modifications weakened household balance sheets by adding $20 billion to household debt, with the net amount of debt added per modification doubling from 2010-2014. Using a decomposition analysis, I also find that the increase in debt is consistent with capitalization of fees. Capitalization of fees is significant because it has been associated with a principal-agent problem between investors and mortgage servicers which prevented efficient loss mitigation, as well as consumer financial protection abuses.

The Revenue Potential of a Financial Transactions Tax for U.S. Financial Markets.

Political Economy Research Institute

2017-07-30

This paper estimates the revenue potential of a financial transaction tax (FTT) for U.S. financial markets. We focus on analyzing the revenue potential of the Inclusive Prosperity Act that was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012 and the U.S. Senate in 2015. The tax rates stipulated in this Act include 0.5 percent (50 basis points) for all stock transactions; 0.1 percent (10 basis points) for all bond transactions; and 0.005 percent (0.5 basis points) on the notional value of all derivative trades. We examine three sets of evidence to generate potential revenue estimates: 1) the levels of transaction costs in U.S. financial markets over time and within the range of financial market segments; 2) the extent of trading elasticities under various trading conditions; and 3) the current level of trading activity in U.S. financial markets. Based on this evidence, we conclude that a US FTT operating at the tax rates stated above would generate about $250 billion pe r year, assuming that a combination of trading volume decline and tax avoidance generates the equivalent of a 50 percent fall in trading revenue. We then consider additional factors whose impact will reduce the net revenue generated by the Act. Adding up these various considerations, we conclude conservatively that the net revenue potential of this U.S. FTT is around $220 billion per year, which equals approximately 1.2 percent of current U.S. GDP. This revenue estimate as a share of GDP is consistent with experiences in other countries that have operated with FTTs with similar tax rates and other design features. It is also consistent with other projections based on tax rates that are comparable to those we are examining. In addition, we examine the 18-fold increase, between the 1970s and the present, in the ratio of stock market trading relative to productive investment spending by U.S. nonfinancial corporations. This sharp rise in stock market trading as a share of productive investments has not been associated with any growth in productive investments themselves. Working from this evidence, we conclude that a U.S. FTT, which should bring a fall in stock market trading relative to productive investment spending, should not, on balance, produce significant negative effects on productive investments.

Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff

Political Economy Research Institute

2013-04-15

Herndon, Ash and Pollin replicate Reinhart and Rogoff and find that coding errors, selective exclusion of available data, and unconventional weighting of summary statistics lead to serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and GDP growth among 20 advanced economies in the post-war period. They find that when properly calculated, the average real GDP growth rate for countries carrying a public-debt-to-GDP ratio of over 90 percent is actually 2.2 percent, not -0:1 percent as published in Reinhart and Rogoff. That is, contrary to RR, average GDP growth at public debt/GDP ratios over 90 percent is not dramatically different than when debt/GDP ratios are lower.