Konstantin Gantert
Assistant Professor of Economics
Tilburg University
Welcome to my personal webpage.
I am a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics at Tilburg University. I hold a PhD in Economics (2022) from Leipzig University.
My research interests are macroeconomics, especially monetary and fiscal economics. In recent work, I employ search-and-matching theory in quantitative dynamic models to analyze inflation, cyclical productivity, and (optimal) fiscal and monetary policy.
Further, I am developing a new macroeconomics course that tries to bridge the gap between the bachelor and master level by introducing dynamic computational models in an intuitive and applied way.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to know more about my work.
Research
The Impact of Active Aggregate Demand on Utilization-Adjusted TFP
Non-clearing goods markets are an important driver of capacity utilization and total factor productivity (TFP). The trade-off between goods prices and household search effort is central to goods market matching and therefore drives TFP over the business cycle. In this paper, I develop a New-Keynesian DSGE model with capital utilization, worker effort, and expand it with goods market search-and-matching (SaM) to model non-clearing goods markets. I conduct a horse-race between the different capacity utilization channels using Bayesian estimation and capacity utilization survey data. Models that include goods market SaM improve the data fit, while the capital utilization and worker effort channels are rendered less important compared to the literature. It follows that TFP fluctuations increase for demand and goods market mismatch shocks, while they decrease for technology shocks. This pattern increases as goods market frictions increase and as prices become stickier. The paper shows the importance of non-clearing goods markets in explaining the difference between technology and TFP over the business cycle.
A Three-Equation GM-SaM (Goods Market Search-and-Matching) Model
How does active aggregate demand of households change the implications of the New-Keynesian model? Building on recent evidence of procyclical household shopping time, I propose a model with variable household shopping effort and imperfect goods market matching. Long-run GDP decreases in a nexus of search frictions and monopolistic competition. The Phillips curve slope becomes flatter, marginal costs and total hours show lower standard deviations, and capacity utilization and TFP become endogenous. All results depend on a trade-off between search costs and goods prices, which is imperfect due to price adjustment costs. The results become more pronounced in demand-driven markets with stickier prices. At the same time, the model shows the same three-equation reduced form as a textbook New-Keynesian model. This paper builds the basis for introducing a large variety of goods market characteristics and breaks it down to a textbook New-Keynesian model with one additional parameter in its simplest form.
Teaching
I teach a variety of courses on macroeconomics and monetary policy, public economics, and programming in economics across different programs. I regularly supervise policy and seminar papers, bachelor thesis, and master thesis. I have teaching experience in German bachelor, master, and PhD programs and Dutch bachelor and research master programs. An overview of courses can be found below.
I have been awarded a Teaching Innovation Grant by the Tilburg School of Economics and Management to develop a macroeconomics course bridging the significant gap between bachelor and (research-)master macroeconomics. The course aims at teaching bachelor students dynamic macroeconomics in an intuitive and applied way, supplying them with the tools to run computational simulations, and to conduct educated monetary and fiscal policy analysis. More information can be found by clicking on the link below:
Course Overview
Macroeconomics (BSc)
Principles of Macroeconomics (Tutorial):
Leipzig University: Fall Term 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021
Macroeconomic - Econometrics and Operations Research (Lecture):
Tilburg University: Fall Term 2022
Quantitative Dynamic Macroeconomics (BSc)
Quantitative Dynamic Macroeconomics (Lecture):
Leipzig University: Spring Term 2022
Tilburg University: Fall Term 2023
Public Economics (BSc)
Public Sector Economics (Lecture):
Tilburg University: Spring Term 2023
Macroeconomics (MSc/RM)
Preparatory Course (Tutorial):
Leipzig University: Spring Term 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022
Lectures on Labor Market SaM (Lecture):
Leipzig University: Spring Term 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Fall Term 2017
Macroeconomics 2 CentER (Tutorial):
Tilburg University: Spring Term 2023
Programming in Economics (BSc/PhD)
Introduction to Octave and MATLAB (Lecture and Tutorial):
Leipzig University: Spring Term 2020, 2021, and 2022
Institute for Economic Research Halle: Spring Term 2022 and 2023
Programming in R and Python (Tutorial):
Tilburg University: Spring Term 2023