Christopher A. Sims

Christopher A. Sims

Born	(1942-10-21) October 21, 1942 Washington, D.C.
Nationality	American
Institution	Princeton University
Field	Macroeconomics Econometrics Time series
Alma mater	Harvard University (A.B, PhD) UC Berkeley
Opposed	"Structural" macroeconomic models
Contributions	Use of vector autoregression
Awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2011)
Information at IDEAS/RePEc

Christopher Albert "Chris" Sims (born October 21, 1942) is an econometrician and macroeconomist. He is currently the Harold B. Helms Professor of Economics and Banking at Princeton University. Together with Thomas Sargent, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2011. The award cited their "empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy".

Nobel Memorial Prize and lecture

On October 10, 2011, Sargent together with Chris Sims was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The award cited their "empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy". His Nobel lecture, titled "Statistical Modeling of Monetary Policy and its Effects" was delivered on December 11, 2011.

Sims earned his A.B. in mathematics from Harvard University magna cum laude in 1963 and his PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1968. He has held teaching positions at Harvard, University of Minnesota, Yale University and, since 1999, Princeton. Sims is a Fellow of the Econometric Society (since 1974), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1988) and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (since 1989). In 1995 he was the president of the Econometric Society. He will be the President-Elect of the American Economic Association in 2011 and then the President of the American Economic Association in 2012.

Sims published numerous important papers in his areas of research: econometrics and macroeconomic theory and policy. Among other things, he was one of the main promoters of the use of vector autoregression in empirical macroeconomics. He has also advocated Bayesian statistics, arguing for its power in formulating and evaluating economic policies.

He also helped develop the fiscal theory of the price level and the theory of rational inattention.

Translating his work into everyday language, Sims said it provided a technique to assess the direction of causality in central bank monetary policy. It confirmed the theories of monetarists like Milton Friedman that shifts in the money supply affect inflation. However, it also showed that causality went both ways. Variables like interest rates and inflation also led to changes in the money supply.

Sim's Nobel lecture was on statistical modeling of monetary policy and its effects, delivered on December 8, 2011.

Publications

• Sims, Christopher (January 1980). "Macroeconomics and reality" (PDF). Econometrica 48 (1): 1–48. doi:10.2307/1912017. JSTOR 1912017. http://www.econ.umn.edu/library/mnpapers/1977-91.pdf. 

External links

• Sims's biography on the official website of the Nobel Prize
• Sims's homepage on the Princeton University website