Professor Eric Pentecost

BA (CNAA), MA (Warwick), PhD (London), FAcSS

  • Professor of Economics

Expertise: open economy macroeconomics; currency substitution and capital flows; exchange rate modelling and policy; financial repression and liberalisation.

Research groups and centres

Publications

Eric Pentecost was born in Rochester, Kent and attended Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School, Rochester, between 1967 and 1974. Eric has degrees in Economics from the University of Warwick (MA, 1978) and the University of London (Queen Mary College, PhD, 1984).

Before joining the Department of Economics at Loughborough University in 1987, Eric was an Economics Analyst in the Bank of England, responsible for the analysis, forecasting and modelling of exchange rates and international capital flows. Eric was promoted to Professor of Economics at Loughborough in 2002 and served as Head of the Department of Economics, from 2007 to 2010.

Eric has held a number of visiting Professor positions, including: Vanderbilt University, USA (Fall Semester, 1994); the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, Kiev, Ukraine, March-May, 1998; University of Namibia, Windhoek, August, 2001; and University of Antwerp, Belgium 2002-2018. Eric has also been a Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Economics and Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge (Michaelmas term, 2005); and at the Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, USA, April, 2010. Currently Eric is a Visiting Professor of Economics, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, USA, 2016 to present.

Eric has written several textbooks on monetary and macroeconomics including: 'Exchange Rate Dynamics' (Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1993); 'Macroeconomics: An Open Economy Approach' (London, Macmillan, 2000), and 'Developments in Macroeconomics' (Oxford, OUP, forthcoming, 2020).

Eric's interests are largely in international monetary economics and macroeconomics.

Career highlight contributions include:

  • Contagion in the Euro-zone since 2009 has not been uniform across the Euro-zone or the EU. Some countries have been ‘safe havens’ for funds, including the UK, Switzerland and the USA; whilst the most important source of financial contagion has been from Ireland and not from Greek as widely believed.
  • Research on exchange rate polices of the Central and Eastern European countries, after 1989, led to Eric being the first European economist to work for the Eurasia Economics Research Consortium (EERC) led by Indiana University (USA) in Kiev, teaching and advising on international monetary issues.
  • First research to show the non-convergence of the regional EU economies, following the accession of Greece to the Union in 1981, thus reversing a trend from the 1950s of gradual convergence. Such divergence has increased with the successive expansions of the EU.
  • Predicted the failure of the Euro-zone to bring about full employment and stable growth, through an econometric analysis of the HM Government’s proposed Hard ECU scheme (1990). Shows that the costs of the UK joining the Euro-zone as it later became – would likely be prohibitively high.
  • Academic Assessor for the Government Economic Service, 2002 to 2005.
  • Chair of the Conference of Heads of University Departments of Economics (CHUDE), 2012 to 2018.
  • Executive Committee Member of the Royal Economic Society, 2012 to 2018.
  • Chair of the QAA Economics Subject Review panel, 2014 to 2015.
  • Economics Network, Management Committee, 2012 to 2018.
  • Currently a visiting Professor of Economics at Claremont Graduate University, USA and member of the Advisory Council for the Claremont Institute for Economic Policy (CIEP).
  • Elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2015.
  • Contagion from the Euro Crisis: Where, When, Why and How Much? (with G. Bird, W. Du & T. Willett). The European Journal of Finance, Vol. 25, No. 14, 2019, pp. 1309-1327.
  • The changing sources of real exchange rate fluctuations in China, 1995-2017: twinning the western industrial economies? (with Y. Tian) The Chinese Economy, Vol. 52, No.4, 2019, pp. 358-376.
  • Was it different the second time? An analysis of market responses to two crises in Greece, (with G. Bird, W. Du & T. Willett) The World Economy, Vol. 40, 2017; pp. 1–14. DOI: 10.1111/twec.12553.
  • Exchange rate regime verification: An alternative method of testing for regime change, (with A.H. Ahmad and D.I. Harvey), Economics Letters, Vol.113, 2011, pp. 96-98. DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2011.05.050.
  • The sources of real exchange rate fluctuations: empirical evidence from African countries, (with A.H. Ahmad), The Manchester School, Supplement, August 2009, pp. 66-84.
  • An investigation into the sources of fluctuation in real and nominal wage rates in eight EU countries: A structural VAR approach, (with T. Moore), Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 34, No. 2, June 2006, pp. 357-376.
  • Financial liberalisation in India and a new test of the complementarity hypothesis, (with T. Moore), Economic Development and Cultural Change, January 2006, pp. 487-502.
  • The dynamic adjustment of a transition economy in the early stages of transformation, (with C. Papazoglou), Journal of Macroeconomics, Vol. 26, No. 3, September 2004, pp. 541-561.
  • Is there a relationship between real exchange rate movements and the output cycle? (with T.C. Mills), Economic Modelling, Vol. 20, May 2003, pp. 593-603.
  • Measuring and estimating exchange market pressure in the EU (with C. Van Hooydonk and A. Van Poeck), Journal of International Money and Finance, Vol. 20, No. 3, June 2001, pp. 401-418.
  • The output response to real exchange rate and real wage shocks in the EU accession economies, (with T.C. Mills), Emerging Markets Review, No. 2,December 2001, pp. 418-430.
  • A cross-country panel data study of currency substitution and trade, (with C.R. Milner and P. Mizen), Economic Inquiry, Vol. 38, No. 2, April 2000, pp. 206-217.
  • International asset pricing and foreign exchange market risk: econometric evidence for the G-7, (with B. Morley), Journal of International Money and Finance, Vol. 17, April 1998, pp. 317-329.
  • Testing for convergence of the EU regional economies, (with K.J. Button), Economic Inquiry, Vol. 33, No. 4, October 1995, pp. 664-671.
  • Evaluating the empirical evidence for currency substitution: a case study of the demand for sterling in Europe, (with P.D. Mizen), The Economic Journal, Vol. 104, September 1994, pp. 1057-1069.
  • Government financing constraint, wealth effects and external balance, Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 50, April 1983, pp. 1174-81.