The NBER Reporter 2010 Number 1: Program and Working Group Meetings

The NBER's Working Group on Entrepreneurship met in Cambridge on December 11, 2009. Directors Josh Lerner, Harvard Business School, and Antoinette Schoar, MIT's Sloan School, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Robert W. Fairlie, University of California, Santa Cruz, and Kanika Kapur and Susan Gates, RAND, "Is Employer-Based Health Insurance a Barrier to Entrepreneurship?"

Meghana Ayyagari, George Washington University; Asli Demirguc-Kunt, The World Bank; and Vojislav Maksimovic, University of Maryland, "Are Innovating Firms Victims or Perpetrators? Tax Evasion, Bribe Payments and the Role of External Finance in Developing Countries"

Thomas Astebro, HEC, Paris; Jose Mata, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and Luis Santos-Pinto, University of Lausanne, "Preference for Skew in Lotteries: Evidence from the Laboratory"

Amitay Alter, Washington University in St. Louis, "The Organization of Venture Capital Firms"

Xuan Tian, Indiana University, and Tracy Y. Wang, University of Minnesota, "Tolerance for Failure and Corporate Innovation"

Ola Bengtsson, Cornell University, and S. Abraham Ravidv, Rutgers University, "Geography and Financial Contracts"

Mercedes Delgado, Temple University; Michael E. Porter, Harvard University; and Scott Stern, Northwestern University and NBER, "Clusters and Entrepreneurship"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

An NBER workshop on Economic Growth, organized by Francisco J. Buera, NBER and University of California, Los Angeles, and James Feyrer, NBER and Dartmouth College, took place on February 4, 2010 at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. These topics were discussed:

"Colonies" Matthias Doepke, Northwestern University and NBER, and Andrea Eisfeldt, Northwestern University

"The Agricultural Basis of Comparative Development" Dietrich Vollrath, University of Houston

"The Size Distribution of Farms and International Productivity Differences" Tasso Adamopoulos, York University, and Diego Restuccia, University of Toronto

"Two Perspectives on Preferences and Structural Transformation"(NBER Working Paper No. 15416) Berthold Herrendorf, Arizona State University; Richard Rogerson, Arizona State University and NBER; and Akos Valentinyi, Magyar Nemzeti Bank

"Do Better Schools Lead to More Growth? Cognitive Skills, Economic Outcomes, and Causation" Eric A. Hanushek, Stanford University and NBER, and Ludger Woessmann, University of Munich

"An Equilibrium Model of the African HIV/AIDS Epidemic" Jeremy Greenwood, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; Philipp Kircher, University of Pennsylvania; and Michele Tertilt, Stanford University and NBER

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth met at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on February 5, 2010. NBER Research Associates Andrew Atkeson of University of California, Los Angeles and Harald Uhlig of the University of Chicago organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Francois Gourio, Boston University and NBER, "Disaster Risk and Business Cycles"

Veronica Guerrieri and Erik Hurst, University of Chicago and NBER, and Daniel Hartley, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, "Endogenous Gentrification and Housing Price Dynamics"

Jack Favilukis, London School of Economics, and Sydney C. Ludvigson and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, New York University and NBER, "The Macroeconomic Effects of Housing Wealth, Housing Finance, and Limited Risk-Sharing in General Equilibrium"

YiLi Chien, Purdue University; Harold Cole, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; and Hanno Lustig, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, "Is the Volatility of the Market Price of Risk due to Intermittent Portfolio Re-Balancing?"

Ricardo Lagos, New York University; Guillaume Rocheteau, University of California, Irvine; and Pierre-Olivier Weill, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, "Crises and Liquidity in Over-the-Counter Markets"

Christopher J. Erceg and Jesper Linde, Federal Reserve Board, "Is There a Fiscal Free Lunch in a Liquidity Trap?"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Industrial Organization, directed by Nancy Rose of MIT, met in Stanford, CA on February 19 and 20, 2010. Justine S. Hastings, NBER and Yale University, and Stephen P. Ryan, NBER and MIT, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Ali Hortacsu and Chad Syverson, University of Chicago and NBER; Gregor Matvos, University of Chicago; and Sriram Venkataraman, Emory University, "Are Consumers Affected by Durable Goods Makers' Financial Distress? The Case of Auto Manufacturers"

Francesco Decarolis, University of Chicago, "When the Highest Bidder Loses the Auction: Theory and Evidence from Public Procurement"

Severin Borenstein, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "The Redistributional Impact of Non-Linear Electricity Pricing"

Ginger Z. Jin, University of Maryland and NBER, and Seth M. Freedman, University of Maryland, "Learning by Doing with Asymmetric Information: Evidence from Prosper.com"

Susan Athey, Harvard University and NBER, and Denis Nekipelov, University of California, Berkeley, "A Structural Model of Sponsored Search Advertising Auctions"

Katja Seim, University of Pennsylvania, and Joel Waldfogel, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, "Public Monopoly and Economic Efficiency: Evidence from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's Entry Decisions"

Igal Hendel and Aviv Nevo, Northwestern University and NBER, "A Simple Model of Demand Anticipation"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on the Development of the American Economy, directed by Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, met in Cambridge on February 27, 2010. These topics were discussed:

Nathan Nunn, Stanford University and NBER; William Easterly, New York and NBER; Daniel Berger and Shanker Satyanath, New York University, "Commercial Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade during the Cold War"

Moritz Schularick, Free University of Berlin, and Alan M. Taylor, University of California, Davis and NBER, "Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles and Financial Crises, 1870 to 2008" (NBER Working Paper No. 15512)

Eugene N. White, Rutgers University and NBER, "Lessons from the Great American Real Estate Boom and Bust of the 1920s"(NBER Working Paper No. 15573)

Kenneth Snowden, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, "The Anatomy of a Residential Mortgage Crisis: A Look Back to the 1930s"

Werner Troesken, University of Pittsburgh and NBER, "The Elasticity of Demand with Respect to Product Failures; or Why the Market for Quack Medicines Flourished for More Than 150 years"(NBER Working Paper No. 15699)

Zeynep K. Hansen, Boise State University and NBER, Gary D. Libecap, University of California, Santa Barbara and NBER, and Scott E. Lowe, Boise State University, "Climate Variability and Water Infrastructure: Historical Experience in the Western United States"(NBER Working Paper No. 15558)

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

Former NBER Director Jeffrey M. Perloff of the University of California, Berkeley, organized a meeting on Agricultural Economics and Biofuels, which took place in Cambridge on March 4 and 5, 2010. These papers were discussed:

John Beghin, Iowa State University and INRA France; and Anne-Celia Disdier and Stephan Marette, INRA France and AgroParisTech, "The Economics and Potential Protectionism of Food Safety Standards and Inspections: An Application to the U.S. Shrimp Market"

Rachel E. Goodhue, University of California, Davis, and Carlo Russo, Universitá di Cassino, "Modeling Processor Market Power and the Incidence of Agricultural Policy: An Exploratory Approach to the Behavioral Model Selection Process"

Barry Goodwin, North Carolina State University; Ashok K. Mishra, Louisiana State University, and Francois Ortalo-Magne, University of Wisconsin, "The Buck Stops Where? The Distribution of Agricultural Subsidies"

Jeffrey T. LaFrance, Washington State University; Rulon Pope, Brigham Young University; and Jesse Tack, Mississippi State University, "Risk Response in Agriculture"

Bruce A. Babcock, Iowa State University, "The Politics and Economics of the U.S. Crop Insurance Program"

Ethan Ligon, University of California, Berkeley, "Demand for and Effects of Specialty Crop Insurance"

Michael J. Roberts, North Carolina State University, and Wolfram Schlenker, Columbia University and NBER, "The U.S. Biofuel Mandate and World Food Prices: An Econometric Analysis of the Demand and Supply of Calories"

Xiaoguang Chen, Haixiao Huang, Madhu Khanna, and Hayri Onal, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, "Meeting the Mandate for Biofuels: Implications for Land Use, Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Social Welfare"

Thomas W. Hertel and Jayson Beckman, Economic Research Service, Department of Agriculture, "Commodity Price Volatility in the Biofuel Era: An Examination of the Linkage between Energy and Agricultural Markets"

Steven Sexton and David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley, "The Economics of Agricultural Biotechnology Adoption: Implications for Biofuel Sustainability"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

Members and guests of the NBER's Program on Monetary Economics met on March 5, 2010 at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mark Gertler, NBER and New York University, and Emi Nakamura, NBER and Columbia Business School, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Martin Ellison, University of Oxford, and Thomas J. Sargent, New York University and NBER, "A Defense of the FOMC"

V.V. Chari, University of Minnesota and NBER, and Patrick Kehoe, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and NBER, "Bailouts, Time Inconsistency, and Optimal Regulation"

Pietro Veronesi and Luigi Zingales, University of Chicago and NBER, "Paulson's Gift"(NBER Working Paper No. 15458)

Markus K. Brunnermeier, Princeton University and NBER, and Yuliy Sannikov, Princeton University, "A Macroeconomic Model with a Financial Sector"

Mary Amiti, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and David Weinstein, Columbia University and NBER, "Exports and Financial Shocks" (NBER Working Paper No. 15556)

Marco Del Negro, Gauti Eggertsson, Andrea Ferrero, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Princeton University and NBER, "The Great Escape: A Quantitative Evaluation of the Fed's Non-Standard Policies Response to the Crisis"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Technological Progress and Productivity Measurement met in Cambridge on March 5, 2010. Program Director Ernst R.Berndt of MIT and NBER Research Associate David Popp of Syracuse University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Jan DeLoecker, Princeton University and NBER, and Frederic Warzynski, Aarhus University, "Markups and Firm-level Export Status"

Jeffrey L. Furman, Boston University and NBER; Fiona E. Murray, MIT; and Scott Stern, Northwestern University and NBER, "Growing Stem Cells: The Impact of U.S. Policy on the Geography and Organization of Scientific Discovery"

Robert S. Pindyck, MIT and NBER, and Neng Wang, Columbia University, "The Economic and Policy Consequences of Catastrophes"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Environmental and Energy Economics Program met in Cambridge on March 5 and 6, 2010. Program Director Don Fullerton of the University of Illinois and NBER Research Associate David Popp of Syracuse University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Karen Fisher-Vanden, Pennsylvania State University; Erin Mansur, Yale University and NBER; and Juliana Wang, Yale University, "Costly Blackouts? Measuring Productivity and Environmental Effects of Electricity Shortages"

Suzanne Scotchmer, University of California, Berkeley, and NBER, "Cap-and-Trade, Emissions Taxes, and Innovation"

Thijs Dekker and Cees A. Withagen, VU University Amsterdam; Herman R.J. Vollebergh, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agenc; and Frans P. De Vries, University of Stirling, "Inciting Protocols: How International Environmental Agreements Trigger Knowledge Transfers"

Juan-Pablo Montero, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, "Prices vs Quantities for the Development of Clean Technologies: The Role of Commitment"

Wolfram Schlenker, Columbia University and NBER, and W. Reed Walker, Columbia University, "The Effect of Airports on Air Quality and Respiratory Problems"

David Albouy and Ryan Kellogg, University of Michigan and NBER; Walter Graf, University of Michigan, and Hendrik Wolff, University of Washington, "Aversion to Extreme Temperatures, Climate Change, and Quality of Life"

Grant D. Jacobsen, UC Santa Barbara, and Matthew J. Kotchen, Yale University and NBER, "Are Building Codes Effective at Saving Energy? Evidence from Residential Billing Data in Florida"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.