James Morley

James Morley is Professor of Macroeconomics in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney, a position he has held since 2017. Prior to this, he was Professor of Economics at the University of New South Wales from 2010 to 2017 and held academic appointments at Washington University in St. Louis. He earned his PhD and MA in Economics from the University of Washington in 1999 and a BA (Honours) from the University of British Columbia. Morley teaches macroeconomics, finance, and econometrics.

His research focuses on macroeconomics and time series econometrics, including the symmetry, sources, and implications of business cycle fluctuations; gradual or abrupt structural changes in macroeconomic relationships; sources of persistent changes in the unemployment rate; effects of stock market volatility on expected returns; and reasons for exchange rate volatility and persistence. Notable publications include “The Asymmetric Business Cycle” with Jeremy Piger (Review of Economics and Statistics, 2012), “In Search of the Natural Rate of Unemployment” with Thomas King (Journal of Monetary Economics, 2007), “Estimating DSGE Models with Zero Interest Rate Policy” with Mariano Kulish and Tim Robinson (Journal of Monetary Economics, 2017), “Intuitive and Reliable Estimates of the Output Gap from a Beveridge-Nelson Filter” with Gunes Kamber and Benjamin Wong (Review of Economics and Statistics, 2018), and “Estimating and Accounting for the Output Gap with Large Bayesian Vector Autoregressions” with Benjamin Wong (Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2020). His scholarship has accumulated over 4,700 citations on Google Scholar. Morley has received several Australian Research Council grants, such as DP240100970 (“Implications of Global Economic Forces for Domestic Monetary Policy,” 2024-2026, AUD$309,037 with co-applicants) and DP190100202 (“Understanding the Sources of Secular Stagnation,” 2019-2021, AUD$317,610). He is a Fellow of the International Association for Applied Econometrics, former President of the Society for Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics (2011-2014), Editor of the Economic Record (2025-2027), Co-Director of the University of Sydney’s “Global Perspectives on Economic Policy” initiative, a member of the Shadow RBA Board (2011-2025), and serves on the Australian Research Council College of Experts (2023-2026).

Professional Email: james.morley@sydney.edu.au