Tarron Khemraj, Ph.D.

Dr. Khemraj specializes in two primary research areas: the political economy of development with special emphasis on the English-speaking Caribbean and the Guianas (Guyana and Suriname); and monetary macroeconomics with focus on the United States and other developing economies. His recent monetary macroeconomic research examines exchange rate management and systems, as well as unconventional monetary policies ranging from quantitative easing in the United States to unorthodox central bank instruments for macroeconomic stabilization in small open developing economies. His book – Money, Banking and the Foreign Exchange Market in Emerging Economies – worked out the analytics of a system of one-sided sterilization in which the central bank sells an official security to target the bid-ask spread in the foreign exchange market for the purpose of maintaining economic stability. The book also demonstrates empirically the existence of a non-zero lower bound interest rate in several developing and emerging economies. The latter has implication for independent monetary policy and exchange rate adjustments. In his political economy research, he has published papers showing that in a bi-communal society people may vote to reinforce an underdevelopment trap; and structural production transformation requires elite agreement over the contestation for economic privileges.