Rate My Professor Rich Higgins

Rich Higgins serves as Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at Colgate University. A macroeconomist, he holds a BS from Pennsylvania State University and a PhD from the University of Oregon, where his dissertation title was “Stochastic Volatility, Financial Frictions, and the Great Moderation.” Since joining Colgate in 2014 upon completing his doctorate, he has been promoted to associate professor. His research interests encompass both theoretical and empirical approaches, with a particular focus on the connection between the financial sector and the real economy. Explicit research specialties include macroeconomics, monetary policy, and Bayesian econometrics. Higgins teaches courses in macroeconomics, money and banking, monetary policy, and statistics. He also incorporates topics such as fly fishing into Colgate's Core curriculum.

Higgins maintains an active research profile with publications in prominent peer-reviewed journals. Key works include “Changes in Central Bank Leadership and Inflation Dynamics” (with I. Qureshi, Southern Economic Journal, 2025), “Time-Varying Volatility and the Housing Market” (with A. Sapci, Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2024), “Risk and Uncertainty: The Role of Financial Frictions” (Economic Modelling, 2023), “Financial Frictions and Changing Macroeconomic Volatility” (Journal of Macroeconomics, 2020), and “Estimating General Equilibrium Models With Stochastic Volatility and Changing Parameters” (Economic Modelling, 2017). He has advised Colgate's Federal Reserve Challenge teams annually from 2014 through 2023, leading to competitive placements including semifinals and regional successes. Higgins supervises senior honors theses in economics, with recent topics covering the spillover effects of United States presidential elections on foreign markets, the economic impact of carrying government debt on interest rates, and the impact of inflation targeting on macroeconomic performance during recessions. He serves as faculty liaison for the men's lacrosse program and has contributed to public engagement through a 2024 podcast episode on the national debt alongside colleague Nicole Simpson for Colgate's 13 series.