The NBER Reporter 2009 Number 4: Program and Working Group Meetings


Market Microstructure
International Finance and Macroeconomics
Household Finance
China Working Group Meets
Economic Fluctuations and Growth
Labor Studies
Public Economics
Monetary Economics
Asset Pricing
Political Economy
Education Program Meeting
Corporate Finance
Organizational Economics
Behavioral Economics
Technological Progress & Productivity Measurement
International Trade and Investment

Market Microstructure

The NBER’s Working Group on Market Microstructure met in Cambridge on October 2. Group Director Bruce Lehmann of University of California, San Diego along with Charles Jones, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Eugene Kandel, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, University of California, Los Angeles, chose these papers for discussion:

  • Lawrence Glosten, Columbia University, "Welfare Cost of Informed Trade"

  • Zhiguo He, University of Chicago, and Wei Xiong, Princeton University and NBER, "Liquidity and Short-Term Debt Crises"

  • Terrence Hendershott, University of California, Berkeley, and Albert Menkveld, VU University Amsterdam, "Price Pressures"

  • Albert Kyle and Anna Obizhaeva, University of Maryland, "Market Microstructure Invariants"

  • Paul Tetlock, Columbia University, "Does Public Financial News Resolve Asymmetric Information?"

  • Dimitri Vayanos, London School of Economics and NBER, and Jiang Wang, MIT and NBER, "Liquidity and Asset Prices: A Unified Framework" (NBER Working Paper No. 15215)

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    International Finance and Macroeconomics

    The NBER’s Program on International Finance and Macroeconomics met in Cambridge on October 9, 2009. NBER Research Associates Charles Engel of the University of Wisconsin and Linda Tesar of the University of Michigan organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Andrew K. Rose, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and Mark M. Spiegel, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, “Cross-Country Causes and Consequences of the 2008 Crisis: Early Warning” and “Cross-Country Causes and Consequences of the 2008: International Linkages and American Exposure” (NBER Working Paper No. 15357 and 15358)

  • Laura Alfaro, Harvard University and NBER, and Faisal Ahmed, University of Chicago, “The Price of Capital: Evidence from Trade Data”

  • Eduardo Borensztein, Inter-American Development Bank; Olivier Jeanne, Johns Hopkins University and NBER; and Damiano Sandri, IMF, “Macro-Hedging for Commodity Exporters”

  • Nicolas Coeurdacier, London Business School, and Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, UC, Berkeley and NBER, “When Bonds Matter: Home Bias in Goods and Assets”

  • Oscar Jorda, University of California, Davis, and Alan Taylor, University of California, Davis and NBER, “The Carry Trade and Fundamentals: Nothing to Fear but FEER Itself”

  • Bernard Dumas, INSEAD and NBER; Karen Lewis, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; and Emilio Osambela, Carnegie-Mellon University, “Differences of Opinion in an International Financial Market Equilibrium”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Household Finance

    The NBER’s Working Group on Household Finance met in Cambridge on October 16, 2009. Organizers Nicholas Souleles, NBER and Wharton School, and Peter Tufano, NBER and Harvard Business School, chose these papers to discuss:

  • Tomasz Piskorski, Columbia University; Amit Seru, University of Chicago; and Vikrant Vig, London Business School, “Securitization and Distressed Loan Renegotiation: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis”

  • Susan E. Woodward, Sand Hill Econometrics, and Robert E. Hall, Stanford University and NBER, “The Equilibrium Distribution of Prices Paid by Imperfectly Informed Customers: Theory and Evidence from the Mortgage Market”

  • Motohiro Yogo, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, “Portfolio Choice in Retirement: Health Risk and the Demand for Annuities, Housing, and Risky Assets” (NBER Working Paper No. 15307)

  • Bruce Ian Carlin, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, and Simon Gervais, Duke University, “Legal Protection in Retail Financial Markets”

  • Shawn Cole, Harvard University; Xavier Giné, World Bank; Jeremy Tobacman, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; Petia Topalova, IMF; Robert Townsend, MIT and NBER; and James Vickery, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India”

  • Marianne Bertrand, University of Chicago and NBER, and Adair Morse, University of Chicago, “Information Disclosure, Cognitive Biases, and Payday Borrowing”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    China Working Group Meets

    The NBER’s Working Group on China, directed by NBER Research Associate Shang-Jin Wei of Columbia University, met in Cambridge on October 16-17, 2009. These papers were discussed:

  • Raymond Fisman, Columbia University and NBER, and Yongxiang Wang, Columbia University, “Corruption in State Asset Sales: Evidence from China”

  • Hongbin Cai and Qinghua Zhang, Peking University, and J. Vernon Henderson, Brown University and NBER, “China’s Land Market Auctions: Evidence of Corruption?”

  • Yi Lu and Zhigang Tao, University of Hong Kong, and Ivan Png, National University of Singapore, “Do Institutions Not Matter in China? Evidence from Manufacturing Enterprises”

  • Joseph Fan, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Jun Huang, Shanghai University of Finance & Economics; Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Harvard University; and Mengxin Zhao, University of Alberta, “Bureaucrats as Managers - Evidence from China”

  • Monica Martinez-Bravo, MIT; Gerard Padro-i-Miquel, London School of Economics and NBER; Nancy Qian, Yale University and NBER; and Yang Yao, Peking University, “Village Democracy: The Effects of Increased Accountability on Inequality and Production”

  • Loren Brandt and Aloysius Siow, University of Toronto, and Carl Vogel, NERA Economic Consulting, “Large Demographic Shocks and Small Changes in the Marriage Market”

  • Shang-Jin Wei, and Xiaobo Zhang, IFPRI, “The Sexual Foundations of Economic Growth: Evidence from China”

  • Weili Ding, Queen’s University, Canada, and Yuan Zhang, Fudan University, China, “When a Son is Born: The Impact of Fertility Patterns on Family Finance in Rural China”

  • Jie Bai, University of Pennsylvania, and Joel Waldfogelv, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, “Movie Piracy and Sales Displacement in Two Samples of Chinese Consumers”

  • Catherine Thomas and Yongxiang Wang, Columbia University, “The Role of Agency in Mitigating Expropriation: Firm-Level Evidence from Contract Renegotiations”

  • Kalina Manova, Stanford University and NBER, and Zhiwei Zhang, HKMA, “Export Prices and Heterogeneous Firm Models”

  • JaeBin Ahn, Columbia University; Amit Khandelwal, Columbia University and NBER; and Shang-Jin Wei, “The Role of Intermediaries in Facilitating Trade”

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    Economic Fluctuations and Growth

    The NBER’s Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth held its fall research meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on October 23, 2009. NBER Research Associates Mark A. Aguiar of the University of Rochester and Jonathan Parker of Northwestern University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Charles I. Jones, Stanford University and NBER, “The Costs of Economic Growth”

  • John H. Cochrane, University of Chicago and NBER, “Understanding Fiscal and Monetary Policy in 2008-9”

  • Lawrence Christiano, Martin Eichenbaum, and Sergio Rebelo, Northwestern University and NBER, “When is the Government Spending Multiplier Large?” (NBER Working Paper No. 15394)

  • Craig Burnside, Duke University and NBER, and Alexandra Tabova, Duke University, “Risk, Volatility, and the Global Cross-Section of Growth Rates” (NBER Working Paper No. 15225)

  • Marcus Hagedorn, University of Zurich, and Iourii Manovskii, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, “Spot Wages over the Business Cycle?”

  • Mark Bils, University of Rochester and NBER; Peter J. Klenow, Stanford University and NBER; and Benjamin Malin, Federal Reserve Board, “Reset Price Inflation and the Impact of Monetary Policy Shocks” (NBER Working Paper No. 14787)

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Labor Studies

    The NBER’s Program on Labor Studies met in Cambridge on October 23, 2009. Program Director David Card, University of California, Berkeley, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Jennifer Hunt, McGill University and NBER, “Why Do Women Leave Science and Engineering?”

  • Cecilia Machado, Columbia University, “Selection, Heterogeneity, and the Gender Wage Gap”

  • Laura Giuliano, University of Miami, “Effects of the 1996 Federal Minimum Wage Law on Employment, Substitution, and the Quality of Teenage Labor Supply: Evidence from Personnel Data”

  • Christopher Bollinger, University of Kentucky, and Barry Hirsch, Georgia State University, “Wage Gap Estimation with Proxies and Nonresponse”

  • Kerwin Kofi Charles and Jonathan Guryan, University of Chicago and NBER, and Jessica Pan, University of Chicago, “Sexism and Women’s Labor Market Outcomes”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Public Economics

    The NBER’s Program on Public Economics met in Cambridge on October 29 and 30, 2009. Program Co-Directors Raj Chetty of Harvard University and Amy Finkelstein of MIT organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Adam J. Cole, U.S. Treasury Department, “Christmas in August: Prices and Quantities during Sales Tax Holidays”

  • Bradley T. Heim and Ithai Z. Lurie, U.S. Treasury Department, “The Effect of Health Insurance Premium Subsidies on Entry into and Exit from Self-Employment

  • Alexander Gelber, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, and Joshua Mitchell, Harvard University, “Taxes and Time Allocation”

  • James R. Hines Jr., University of Michigan and NBER, and R. Alison Felix, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, “Corporate Taxes and Union Wages in the United States” (NBER Working Paper No. 15263)

  • Henrik J. Kleven, London School of Economics; Martin B. Knudsen and Soren Pedersen, Danish Inland Revenue; Claus T. Kreiner, University of Copenhagen; and Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; “Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence from a Randomized Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark”

  • Fabian Duarte, Yale University, and Justine Hastings, Yale University and NBER, “Fettered Consumers and Sophisticated Firms: Evidence from Mexico’s Privatized Social Security Market”

  • Patrick Bajari, University of Minnesota and NBER, and Gregory Lewis, Harvard University and NBER, “Procurement Contracting with Time Incentives: Theory and Evidence”

  • Mikhail Golosov and Aleh Tsyvinski, Yale University and NBER, and Matthew Weinzierl, Harvard University, “Preference Heterogeneity and Optimal Commodity Taxation”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Monetary Economics

    The NBER’s Program on Monetary Economics met in Cambridge on November 6, 2009. NBER Research Associates Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and James Stock of Harvard University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Glenn Rudebusch and Eric Swanson, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, “The Bond Premium in a DSGE Model with Long-Run Real and Nominal Risks”

  • Scott Borger, Office of Immigration Statistics; James Hamilton, University of California, San Diego and NBER; and Seth Pruitt, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, “The Market-Perceived Monetary Policy Rule”

  • Francois Gourio, Boston University and NBER, “Disaster Risk and Business Cycles”(NBER Working Paper No. 15399)

  • Manuel Adelino, MIT; Kristopher Gerardi, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; and Paul Willen, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and NBER, “Why Don’t Lenders Renegotiate More Home Mortgages? Re-defaults, Self-Cures, and Securitization”

  • John Driscoll and Ruth Judson, Federal Reserve Board, “Sticky Deposit Rates: Data and Implications for Models of Price Adjustment”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Asset Pricing

    NBER’s Program on Asset Pricing met in California on November 13, 2009. NBER Research Associates Leonid Kogan and Jiang Wang, both of MIT, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Darrell Duffie, Stanford University and NBER, and Bruno Strulovici, Northwestern University, “Capital Mobility and Asset Pricing”

  • Krista Schwarz, University of Pennsylvania, “Mind the Gap: Disentangling Credit and Liquidity in Risk Spreads”

  • Viral V. Acharya, New York University and NBER; Douglas Gale, New York University; and Tanju Yorulmazer, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “Rollover Risk and Market Freezes”

  • Gerard Hoberg, University of Maryland, and Ivo Welch, Brown University and NBER, “Better Factor Portfolios and Pricing Book-to-Market Characteristics with the Fama-French Factor Model”

  • Igor Makarov and Guillaume Plantin, London School of Business, “Equilibrium Subprime Lending”

  • Stefan Nagel and Kenneth J. Singleton, Stanford University and NBER, “Estimation and Evaluation of Conditional Asset Pricing Models”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Political Economy

    NBER’s Program on Political Economy met in Cambridge on November 13, 2009. Pedro Dal Bo, NBER and University of California, Berkeley, and Romain Wacziarg, NBER and University of California, Los Angeles, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Lauren Cohen and Joshua D. Coval, Harvard University and NBER, and Christopher Malloy, Harvard University, “Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?”

  • Bard Harstad, Northwestern University, “The Dynamics of Climate Agreements”

  • Kaivan Munshi, Brown University and NBER, and Mark Rosenzweig, Yale University, “The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments”

  • Raquel Fernandez, New York University and NBER, “Women’s Rights and Development”

  • Fernanda Brollo, Tommaso Nannicini, and Guido Tabellini, Bocconi University; and Roberto Perotti, Bocconi University and NBER, “The Political Resource Curse”

  • Jeffrey Butler, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance; Paola Giuliano, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER; and Luigi Guiso, European University Institute, “The Right Amount of Trust”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Education Program Meeting

    The NBER’s Education Program met in California on November 19 and 20, 2009. Program Director Caroline M. Hoxby of Stanford University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Glenn Ellison, MIT and NBER, and Ashley Swanson, MIT, “The Gender Gap in Secondary School Mathematics at High Achievement Levels: Evidence from the American Mathematics Competitions” (NBER Working Paper No. 15238)

  • Leah Platt Boustan, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, “Desegregation and Urban Change: Evidence from City Boundaries”

  • P. C. Winnie Chan, Statistics Canada, and Robert McMillan, University of Toronto and NBER, “School Choice and Public School Performance: Evidence from Ontario's Tuition Tax Credit”

  • Jane Cooley, Salvador Navarro, and Yuya Takahashi, University of Wisconsin, “A Framework for the Analysis of Time-varying Treatment Effects: How the Timing of Grade Retention Affects Outcomes”

  • Joshua Goodman, Harvard University, “The Labor of Division: Returns to Compulsory Math Coursework”

  • Matthew Chingos, Harvard University, and Martin West, Brown University, “Do More Effective Teachers Earn More Outside of the Classroom?”

  • Tahir Andrabi, Pomona College; Jishnu Das, The World Bank; and Asim Ijaz Khwaja, Harvard University and NBER, “What Did You Do All Day? Maternal Education and Child Outcomes”

  • Rema Hanna, Harvard University and NBER, and Leigh Linden, Columbia University, “Measuring Discrimination in Education” (NBER Working Paper No. 15057)

  • Ofer Malamud, University of Chicago and NBER, and Abigail Wozniak, University of Notre Dame, “The Impact of College Education on Geographic Mobility: Identifying Education Using Multiple Components of Vietnam Draft Risk”

  • Louis-Philippe Morin, University of Ottawa, “Gender and Competition: From the Lab into the Classroom”

  • Christopher Avery, Harvard University and NBER, and Sarah Turner, University of Virginia and NBER, “Playing the College Application Game: Critical Moves and the Link to Socio-Economic Circumstances”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Corporate Finance

    The NBER’s Program on Corporate Finance met in Cambridge on November 20, 2009. Christian Leuz, NBER and University of Chicago, and Morten Sorensen, NBER and Columbia University, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Todd Gormley, University of Pennsylvania, and Bong H. Kim and Xiumin Martin, Washington University of St. Louis, “Can Firms Adjust Their Opaqueness to Lenders? Evidence from Foreign Bank Entry into India”

  • Daniel Paravisini, Columbia University, and Hannah Lin, International Monetary Fund, “What's Bank Reputation Worth? The Effect of Fraud on Financial Contracts and Investment”

  • Michael R. Roberts, University of Pennsylvania, and Mark Leary, Cornell University, “Do Peer Firms Affect Corporate Financial Policy?”

  • Ivo Welch, Brown University and NBER, and Peter Iliev, Pennsylvania State University, “How Quickly Do Firms Readjust Capital Structure?”

  • Itay Goldstein, University of Pennsylvania, and Emre Ozdenoren and Kathy Yuan, University of Michigan, “Trading Frenzies and Their Impact on Real Investment”

  • Elena Simintzi, Vikrant Vig, and Paolo Volpin, London Business School, “Labor and Capital: Is Debt a Bargaining Tool?”

  • Efraim Benmelech, Harvard University and NBER, and Nittai Bergman, MIT and NBER, “Negotiating with Labor under Financial Distress”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Organizational Economics

    The NBER’s Working Group on Organizational Economics met in Cambridge on November 20 and 21, 2009. Organizer Robert S. Gibbons of NBER and MIT chose these papers for discussion:

  • Bjorn Bartling and Ernst Fehr, University of Zurich, and Klaus Schmidt, University of Munich, “Screening, Competition and Job Design”

  • Claudine Desrieux, University of Paris 2 Pantheon; Eshien Chong, University of Paris XI; and Stephane Saussier, IAE - University of Paris I Sorbonne, “Putting All One’s Eggs in One Basket: Relational Contracts and the Provision of Local Public Services”

  • Yuk-Fai Fong and Jin Li, Northwestern University, “Relational Contracts, Limited Liability, and Employment Dynamics”

  • David McAdams, Duke University, “Performance and Turnover in a Stochastic Partnership”

  • Ricard Gil and Justin Marion, University of California, Santa Cruz, “The Role of Repeated Interactions, Self-Enforcing Agreements and Relational [Sub]Contracting: Evidence for California Highway Procurement Auctions”

  • Simon Board, University of California, Los Angeles, “Relational Contracts and the Value of Loyalty”

  • Hideshi Itoh, Hitotsubashi University, and Hodaka Morita, University of New South Wales, “Formal Contracts, Relational Contracts, and the Holdup Problem”

  • David Cooper, Florida State University, and Kai-Uwe Kühn, University of Michigan, “Communication, Renegotiation, and the Scope for Collusion”

  • Pedro Dal Bó, Brown University and NBER, and Guillaume R. Fréchette, New York University, “The Evolution of Cooperation in Infinitely Repeated Games: Experimental Evidence”

  • David A. Miller and Joel Watson, University of California, San Diego, “A Theory of Disagreement in Repeated Games with Renegotiation”

  • Giacomo Calzolari, University of Bologna, and Giancarlo Spagnolo, University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', “Relational Contracts and Competitive Screening”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Behavioral Economics

    The NBER’s Working Group on Behavioral Economics met in Cambridge on November 21, 2009. Andrea Frazzini, AQR Capital Management, LLC, and Kent Daniel, Northwestern University, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Victor Stango, University of California, Davis, and Jonathan Zinman, Dartmouth College, “Limited and Varying Consumer Attention: Evidence from Shocks to the Salience of Penalty Fees”

  • Nicolae Garleanu, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and Lasse Pedersen, New York University and NBER, “Margin-Based Asset Pricing and the Law of One Price”

  • Mark Grinblatt, University of California, Los Angeles; Matti Keloharju, Helsinki School of Economics; and Juhani Linnainmaa, University of Chicago, “Do Smart Investors Outperform Dumb Investors?”

  • Robin Greenwood, Harvard University and NBER, and Samuel Hanson, Harvard University, “Catering to Characteristics”

  • Christopher Parsons and Joseph Engelberg, University of North Carolina, “The Causal Impact of Media in Financial Markets”

  • Malcolm Baker, Harvard University and NBER; Xin Pan, Harvard University; and Jeffrey Wurgler, New York University and NBER, “A Reference Point Theory of Mergers and Acquisitions”

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    Technological Progress & Productivity Measurement

    The NBER’s Program on Technological Progress & Productivity Measurement met in Cambridge on December 4, 2009. Ajay K. Agrawal, NBER and University of Toronto, and Benjamin Jones, NBER and Northwestern University, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Pierre Azoulay, MIT and NBER; Joshua Graff Zivin, Columbia University and NBER; and Gustavo Manso, MIT, “Incentives and Creativity: Evidence from the Academic Life Sciences” (NBER Working Paper No. 15466)

  • Tim Simcoe, Boston University and NBER, “What’s in a (Missing) Name? Status Signals in Open Standards Development”

  • Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT and NBER, and Lynn Wu, MIT, “The Future of Prediction: How Google Searches Foreshadow Housing Prices and Sales”

  • Alex Oettl, Georgia Institute of Technology, “Productivity and Helpfulness: Implications of a New Taxonomy for Star Scientists”

  • Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and Monika Schnitzer, University of Munich, “Financial Constraints and Innovation: Why Poor Countries Don't Catch Up”

  • Heidi Williams, Harvard University, "Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation: Evidence from the Human Genome"

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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    International Trade and Investment

    The NBER’s Program on International Trade and Investment met at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on December 4 – 5, 2009. Program Director Robert C. Feenstra of University of California, Davis, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

  • Edward Leamer, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, "The Heckscher-Ohlin Framework and the Craft of Economics"

  • Ariel Burstein, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, and Jonathan Vogel, Columbia University and NBER, "Globalization, Technology, and the Skill Premium"

  • Costas Arkolakis, Yale University and NBER; Arnaud Costinot, MIT and NBER; and Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, Pennsylvania State University and NBER, "New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?"

  • Mary Amiti, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and David Weinstein, Columbia University and NBER, "Exports and Financial Shocks"

  • Katheryn Russ, University of California, Davis and NBER, and Diego Valderrama, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Financial Choice in a Non-Ricardian Model of Trade"

  • Danielken Molina, University of California, San Diego, and Marc-Andreas Muendler, University of California, San Diego and NBER, "Preparing to Export"

  • Ivan Cherkashin, Pennsylvania State University; Svetlana Demidova, McMaster University; Hiau Looi Kee, World Bank; and Kala Krishna, Pennsylvania State University and NBER, "Firm Heterogeneity and Costly Trade: A New Estimation Strategy and Policy Experiments"

  • JaeBin Ahn, Columbia University, and Amit Khandelwal and Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia University and NBER, "The Role of Intermediaries in Facilitating Trade"

    Summaries of these papers may be found here

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