Associate Professor in Economics and Policy
Affiliated faculty member at the Department of Economics, University of Cambridge
BA, MSc (Bocconi University), MA, PhD (University of Chicago)
My research interests span economics and finance, with a focus on firm-level decision-making.
I study how market frictions shape firms’ production, innovation and market structure, and what firm-level decisions imply for monetary policy, business cycle dynamics and economic growth.
My research is featured in leading academic outlets, such as Econometrica, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Monetary Economics, and the Journal of International Economics.
Professional experience
Simone Lenzu is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an academic consultant at the National Bank of Belgium.
Previous appointments
Prior to joining Cambridge Judge Business School, Dr Lenzu was a faculty member at New York University, Stern School of Business.
Publications
Selected publications
- Archarya, V., Lenzu, S. and Wang, O. (2026) “Zombie lending and policy traps.” Review of Economic Studies (forthcoming)
- Lenzu, S., Rivers, D., Tielens, J. and Hu, S. (2026) “Financial shocks, productivity, and prices.” Review of Economic Studies (forthcoming)
- Gagliardone, L., Gertler, M., Lenzu, S. and Tielens, J. (2025) “Anatomy of the Phillips Curve: micro evidence and macro implications.”– American Economic Review, 115(11): 3941-3974 (DOI: 10.1257/aer.20231569) (available online)
- Giroud, X., Lenzu, S., Maingi, Q. and Mueller, H. (2024) “Propagation and amplification of local productivity spillovers.” Econometrica, 92(5): 1589-1619 (DOI: 10.3982/ECTA20029) (available online)
- Bottero, M., Lenzu, S. and Mezzanotti, F. (2020) “Sovereign debt exposure and the bank lending channel: Impact on credit supply and the real economy.” Journal of International Economics , 126: 103328 (DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2020.103328) (available online)
- Lenzu, S. and Tedeschi, G. (2012) “Systemic risk on different interbank network topologies.” – Physica A, 391(18): 4331-4341 (DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2012.03.035) (available online)
Media coverage
Financial Times | 27 May 2026
AI and monetary policy: it’s complicated
A recent note from Simone Lenzu, a researcher at the New York Fed, goes in-depth into how AI will ultimately affect price levels and monetary policy. The short answer is: it will bring disinflationary and inflationary forces and many short-term risks.
Liberty Street Economics | 20 May 2026
AI’s macroeconomic challenges and promises
Dr Simone Lenzu writes about how the tension between AI’s long-run promise and its short-run costs affects the outlooks for inflation, real activity and financial stability.
Liberty Street Economics | 4 February 2026
Anatomy (not autopsy) of the Phillips Curve
The relationship between inflation and real economic activity has long been central to debates in macroeconomics and monetary policy, writes Dr Simone Lenzu. At the core of this debate is the Phillips curve (PC), which measures how strongly inflation reacts to movements in economic conditions.
New York Times, 28 June 2023
What old-school economics doesn’t get about democracy