Makoto Nakajima is an economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. His current research focuses on the role of home equity in retierees' savings decisions, the interaction between capital income taxation and housing taxation, the role of consumer bankruptcy in business cycles, and labor market dynamics over the business cycle. Before joining the Philadelphia Fed, he was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Nakajima received a B.A. in International relations from the University of Tokyo in 1994, and an M.A. and Ph.D.  in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 and 2004 respectively.