PhD Candidate · Economics
Giovanni Borraccia
I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID) and currently a PhD Summer Research Intern in the IMF Statistics Department. I was recently a Visiting PhD Fellow at UC Berkeley. My research focus is in behavioral macroeconomics, inflation expectations, information frictions, and monetary policy transmission.
On the 2026–2027 economics job market — happy to connect.
About
I study how households form beliefs about the economy — particularly about inflation — and how the information they hold, and the frictions that shape it, feed back into their financial decisions. My dissertation brings together three papers at the intersection of household finance, expectation formation, and information frictions.
Alongside my doctoral work I remain closely engaged with policy institutions: I am currently a PhD Summer Research Intern in the Statistics Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Earlier, I spent several years as a research analyst in the European Department of the IMF, in the Prospects Group of the World Bank, in DG-Economics at the European Central Bank, and in the Regulatory Policy Division of the OECD. This work grounds my research in the questions that policymakers actually face.
I hold an MSc in the Political Economy of Europe from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a BSc (Hons) in Economics from University College London (UCL).
Research
Job Market Paper Stock Ownership and Inflation Expectations: Evidence from the 2021–2025 Inflation Surge
The gap between stockholders’ and non-stockholders’ inflation expectations widened during the prolonged 2021–2025 inflation episode and grew further as inflation receded. Using the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers in a difference-in-differences design, I estimate that stockholders’ one-year-ahead expectations rose 1.78 percentage points less than non-stockholders’, alongside a relative improvement in forecast accuracy. The widening is concentrated in the upper tail: the estimated difference is 4.67 points at the ninetieth percentile and near zero at the twenty-fifth. No comparable widening is detected around the shorter 2008 inflation spike. I develop a two-signal model of behavioural inattention in which households form forecasts from everyday prices and aggregate financial information. Stock ownership lowers the cost of attending to financial information, reducing the influence of accumulated price experience on forecasts. A calibration disciplined by group means and forecast dispersions shows how fixed differences in attention costs translate a changing inflation environment into a widening expectations gap.
Working papers & work in progress
High Expectations: State-Dependence and Heterogeneous Pass-Through in an Augmented Euro Area Phillips Curve
Firms’ own selling-price expectations are the forward-looking force at the heart of the sectoral Phillips curve, yet their pass-through into producer prices is uneven. Using harmonised quarterly data for seventeen euro-area economies and nineteen sectors (2000–2023) and a Dynamic Common Correlated Effects Mean Group estimator, I show that pass-through rises by about two-thirds — from roughly 0.28 to 0.45 standard deviations — once a common factor of cross-country expectations turns “hot”. The amplification is broad-based across manufacturing, absent only in Electronics, and strongest in Core economies; an Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition attributes the cross-country gradient predominantly to firms’ price-setting behaviour rather than to sectoral composition.
Third dissertation paper — title forthcoming
My third paper is ongoing research developed during my internship in the IMF Statistics Department. [Placeholder — replace with one or two sentences on the question and approach.]
CV
Education
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2023 – 2027 (expected)
PhD in Economics
Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID), Geneva
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2026
Visiting PhD Fellow
University of California, Berkeley
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2018 – 2019
MSc, Political Economy of Europe
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
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2015 – 2018
UCL
BSc, Economics
University College London (UCL)
Professional experience
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Feb 2022 – Oct 2023
Macro Research Analyst
International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Department — Washington, DC
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Sep 2021 – Feb 2022
Macroeconomic Consultant
World Bank, Prospects Group — Washington, DC
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Aug 2020 – Aug 2021
Research Trainee
European Central Bank (ECB), DG-Economics — Frankfurt am Main
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Sep 2019 – Apr 2020
Junior Consultant
OECD, Regulatory Policy Division — Paris
Skills
Quantitative EViews, Stata, Python (advanced); MATLAB, Dynare, LaTeX (working)
Data platforms Bloomberg, Haver Analytics, FAME
Languages Italian (native), English (native), Spanish (advanced), French (intermediate)
Publications
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Financial Conditions in Europe: Dynamics, Drivers and Macroeconomic Implications
Borraccia, G., et al. (2023). IMF Departmental Paper, European Department, International Monetary Fund.
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Monetary Policy and Wage-Bargaining in the Eurozone: An Epistemological Break? An Analysis from the Perspective of the ECB
Borraccia, G. (2021). LSE ‘Europe in Question’ Discussion Paper Series, No. 172.
Policy Contributions
Named contributions to flagship reports and official statistical products of the policy institutions where I have worked. Full detail in the CV.
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World Economic Outlook (WEO)
International Monetary Fund, European Department. Maintained the Ireland and Austria macroeconomic frameworks and coordinated forecast submissions with the Research Department.
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Article IV Consultation Reports — Ireland & Austria (2022)
International Monetary Fund, European Department. Contributed to macroeconomic surveillance and to the drafting of the country consultation reports.
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Global Economic Prospects — January 2022
World Bank, Prospects Group. Maintained the macroeconomic datasets and EViews model, and produced the publication-ready charts and country chartbooks.
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ECB Macroeconomic Projection Exercises — Latvia
European Central Bank, DG-Economics. Ran the country projection rounds on a 70-equation semi-structural model; drafted the country chapters and technical notes.
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Euro Area & Non-Euro Area Surveillance Reports
European Central Bank, DG-Economics. Contributed aggregate and sectoral macroeconomic analysis and country-specific structural assessments.
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One-Stop Shops for Citizens and Business (2020)
OECD Best Practice Principles for Regulatory Policy. Contributed to the underlying iREG survey indicators, official country profiles, and case-study analysis.
Contact
Affiliation
Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Geneva, Switzerland
Elsewhere