The NBER Reporter 2010 Number 2: Program and Working Group Meetings

The NBER's Program on Health Care met in Cambridge on March 12, 2010. Program Director Jonathan Gruber of MIT organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Eric Helland, McKenna College; Darius N. Lakdawalla, University of Southern California and NBER; Anup Malani, University of Chicago and NBER; and Seth A. Seabury, Rand Corporation, "Tort Liability and the Market for Prescription Drugs"

Cory Capps, Bates White LLC.; Dennis W. Carlton, University of Chicago and NBER; and Guy David, University of Pennsylvania, "Antitrust Treatment of Nonprofits: Should Hospitals Receive Special Care?"

Jacob Glazer, Tel Aviv/Boston University, and Thomas G. McGuire, Harvard University, "Gold and Silver Health Plans: Accommodating Demand Heterogeneity in Managed Competition"

Louise Sheiner, Federal Reserve Board, "Geographic Variation in Health Spending: Is Medicare a Good Proxy?"

Anirban Basu and Tomas J. Philipson, University of Chicago and NBER, "The Impact of Comparative Effectiveness Research on Health and Health Care Spending"

Tomas J. Philipson; Seth A. Seabury; Lee Lockwood, University of Chicago; Dana Goldman, University of Southern California; and Darius N. Lakdawalla, "Regional Variations in Health Care: The Role of Private Markets"

David Chan, MIT, and Jonathan Gruber, "Charging Low Income Families for Health Insurance: How Does It Impact Choices?"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on International Finance and Macroeconomics met in Cambridge on March 12, 2010. NBER Research Associates Roberto Chang of Rutgers University and Kristin Forbes of MIT organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

G. Andrew Karolyi, Cornell University, and Rose C. Liao, Rutgers University, "What is Different about Government-Controlled Acquirers' Cross-Border Acquisitions?"

Cosmin Ilut, Duke University, "Ambiguity Aversion: Implications for the Uncovered Interest Rate Parity Puzzle"

Kalina Manova, Stanford University and NBER; Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia University and NBER; and Zhiwei Zhang, International Monetary Fund, "Firm Exports and Multinational Activity under Credit Constraints"

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, University of Houston and NBER; Herman Kamil, International Monetary Fund; and Carolina Villegas-Sanchez, University of Houston, "What Hinders Investment in the Aftermath of Financial Crises: Balance-Sheet Mismatches or Access to Finance?"

Olivier Jeanne, John Hopkins University and NBER, "The Global Liquidity Trap"

Martin Bodenstein, Christopher J. Erceg, and Luca Guerrieri, Federal Reserve Board, "The Effects of Foreign Shocks when Interest Rates are at Zero"

Fabrizio Perri, University of Minnesota and NBER, and Vincenzo Quadrini, University of Southern California and NBER, "International Recessions"

Steven B. Kamin and Laurie Pounder, Federal Reserve Board, "How Did a Domestic Housing Slump Turn into a Global Financial Crisis?"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Law and Economics, directed by Christine Jolls of Yale Law School, met in Cambridge on March 19, 2010. These papers were discussed:

Nicola Persico, New York University and NBER; Edoardo di Porto, EQUIPPE, USTL Lille; and Nicolas Sahuguet, HEC Montréal, "Tax Auditing Without Commitment, With an Application to Labor Tax Evasion in Italy"

Wei Jiang, Columbia University, and Vikas Agarwal, Yuehua Tang, and Baozhong Yang, Georgia State University, "Do Institutional Investors Have an Ace up Their Sleeves? Evidence from Confidential Filings of Portfolio Holdings"

Viral V. Acharya, New York University and NBER; Stewart C. Myers, MIT and NBER; and Raghuram Rajan, University of Chicago and NBER, "The Internal Governance of Firms" (NBER Working Paper No. 15568)

Stefania Albanesi, Columbia University and NBER, and Claudia Olivetti, Boston University and NBER, "Gender and Dynamic Agency: Theory and Evidence on the Compensation of Top Executives"

Max Schanzenbach, Northwestern University School of Law; Ronen Avraham, University of Texas School of Law; and Leemore S. Dafny, Northwestern University and NBER, "The Impact of Tort Reform on Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums" (NBER Working Paper No. 15371)

Bruce I. Carlin, University of California, Los Angeles, and NBER, and Simon Gervais, Duke University, "Legal Protection in Retail Financial Markets" (NBER Working Paper No. 14972)

Christopher Snyder, Dartmouth College, and Wallace P. Mullin, George Washington University, "Deterring Nuisance Suits through Employee Indemnification"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on International Trade and Investment met in Cambridge on March 26-27, 2010. Program Director Robert C. Feenstra of the University of California, Davis, organized the meeting and chose these papers to discuss:

Jonathan Eaton, Pennsylvania State University and NBER; Sam Kortum and John Romalis, University of Chicago and NBER; and Brent Neiman, University of Chicago, "Trade and the Global Recession"

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

James E. Anderson, Boston College and NBER, and Yoto V. Yotov, Drexel University, "Specialization: Pro- and Anti-Globalizing, 1990-2002"

Douglas A. Irwin, Dartmouth College and NBER, "Do Tariffs Affect the Terms of Trade? Evidence from U.S. Tariff Shocks"

Xiaobo Lü and Kenneth F. Scheve, Yale University, and Matthew J. Slaughter, Dartmouth College and NBER, "Envy, Altruism, and the International Distribution of Trade Protection"(NBER Working Paper No. 15700)

Gianmarco Ottaviano, Bocconi University; Giovanni Peri, University of California, Davis and NBER; and Greg C. Wright, University of California, Davis, "Immigration, Offshoring and American Jobs"

José Fillat, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and Stefania Garetto, Boston University, "Risk, Returns, and Multinational Production"

Kalina Manova, Stanford University and NBER; Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia University and NBER; and Zhiwei Zhang, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, "Firm Exports and Multinational Activity under Credit Constraints"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Labor Studies met at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on April 2, 2010. Program Director David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Catherine Weinberger, University of California, Santa Barbara, "The Increasing Complementarity between Cognitive and Social Skills"

Michael F. Lovenheim, Cornell University, and Kevin J. Mumford, Purdue University, "Do Family Wealth Shocks Affect Fertility Choices? Evidence from the Housing Market Boom and Bust"

Alexander M. Gelber, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, and Joshua W. Mitchell, Harvard University, "Taxes and Time Allocation: Evidence from Single Women" (NBER Working Paper No. 15583)

Rucker C. Johnson, University of California, Berkeley, "Long-Run Impact of School Desegregation and School Quality on Adult Health"

Nicholas Bloom, Stanford University and NBER; Carol Propper, CMPO University of Bristol; Stephen Seiler, London School of Economics; and John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and NBER, "The Impact of Competition on Management Quality: Evidence from Public Hospitals"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Working Group on Cohort Studies met in Chicago on April 2-3, 2010. The group's Director Dora L. Costa of the University of California, Los Angeles, organized the meeting. These papers and topics were discussed:

"The Developmental Origins of Longevity" -- David Barker, Southampton General Hospital

"Early Life Family and Socioeconomic Conditions and Cause-Specific Mortality in Finland" -- Irma T. Elo, University of Pennsylvania; Pekka Martikainen, University of Helsinki; and Mikko Myrskylä, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

"Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation" (NBER Working Paper No. 15664) -- Flavio Cunha, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; James Heckman, University of Chicago and NBER; and Susanne Schennach, University of Chicago

"The Ostrich Effect: Selective Attention to Financial News by Investors"-- George Loewenstein and Duane Seppi, Carnegie Mellon University; Nachum Sicherman, Columbia University; and Stephen Utkus, Vanguard

"Growing Up in a Recession: Beliefs and the Macroeconomy"(NBER Working Paper No. 15321) -- Paola Giuliano, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, and Antonio Spilimbergo, International Monetary Fund

"Environmental and Socioeconomic Influences on Health over the Millennia: a P01 Proposal with a Global Perspective" -- Richard H. Steckel, Ohio State University and NBER

"Cohort Modeling" -- Kenneth Manton, Duke University

"Recent Advances in Econometrics" -- Edward Vytlacil, Yale University and NBER

"Son Preference, Sex Selection, and Economic Development: Theory and Evidence from South Korea" -- Lena Edlund, Columbia University, and Chulhee Lee, Seoul National University

"In the Name of the Father: Marriage and Intergenerational Mobility in the United States, 1850-1930" -- Claudia Olivetti and M. Daniele Paserman, Boston University and NBER

"Shocking Behavior: Land Lotteries in 1832 Georgia and 1901 Oklahoma and Later Life Outcomes" -- Hoyt Bleakley, University of Chicago and NBER, and Joseph P. Ferrie, Northwestern University and NBER

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Public Economics met in Cambridge on April 8-9, 2010. NBER Research Associates Raj Chetty of Harvard University and Wojciech Kopczuk of Columbia University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Mikhail Golosov and Aleh Tsyvinski, Yale University and NBER, and Maxim Troshkin, University of Minnesota, "Optimal Dynamic Taxes"

Brian G. Knight, Brown University and NBER, and Nathan Schiff, University of British Columbia, "Spatial Competition and Cross-Border Shopping: Evidence from State Lotteries"

Roger H. Gordon and Julie Berry Cullen, University of California, San Diego and NBER, "Income Redistribution in a Federal System of Governments"

James Sallee, University of Chicago, and Joel Slemrod, University of Michigan and NBER, "Car Notches"

Michael Anderson, University of California, Berkeley; Carlos Dobkin, University of California, Santa Cruz and NBER; and Tal Gross, University of Miami, "The Effect of Health Insurance Coverage on the Use of Medical Services" (NBER Working Paper No. 15823)

Till Von Wachter, Columbia University and NBER; Jae Song, Social Security Administration; and Joyce Manchester, Congressional Budget Office, "Trends in Employment and Earnings of Allowed and Rejected Applicants to the Social Security Disability Insurance Program"

Vivi Alatas, World Bank; Abhijit Banerjee and Benjamin A. Olken, MIT and NBER; Rema Hanna, Harvard University and NBER; and Julia Tobias, Stanford University, "Targeting the Poor: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

NBER Research Associate Erik Hurst of the University of Chicago and NBER President James Poterba of MIT, who co-direct an NBER project on “The Economics of Household Saving”, organized a meeting of that project on April 16, 2010. The following papers were discussed:

Bruce Meyer, University of Chicago and NBER, and James Sullivan, University of Notre Dame and NBER, "Income and Consumption Volatility over Time"

Michael D. Hurd, RAND Corporation and NBER, and Susann Rohwedder, RAND Corporation, "Wealth Dynamics and Active Saving at Older Ages: Do They Add Up?"

Karen Dynan, Brookings Institution, "Wealth Effects and the Changing Economy"

J. Karl Scholz, University of Wisconsin and NBER, and Ananth Seshadri, University of Wisconsin, "Health and Wealth in a Lifecycle Model"

Mariacristina De Nardi, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and NBER; Eric French, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; and John Bailey Jones, State University of New York, Albany, "The Effects of Medicaid and Medicare Reforms on the Elderly's Savings and Medical Expenditures"

The authors of each of these papers have prepared short research summaries that describe their findings and the broader implications of their work. These summaries may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Asset Pricing met at the University of Chicago's Gleacher Center on April 23, 2010. Nicolae B. Garleanu and Martin Lettau, NBER and University of California, Berkeley, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Jules H. Van Binsbergen, Stanford University; Michael W. Brandt, Duke University and NBER; and Ralph S. J. Koijen, University of Chicago, "On Timing and Pricing of Cash Flows"

Gregory R. Duffee, John Hopkins University, "Sharpe Ratios in Term Structure Models"

Tarek A. Hassan, University of Chicago, and Thomas M. Mertens, New York University, "The Social Cost Near-Rational Investment: Why We Should Worry About Volatile Stock Markets"

Juhani T. Linnainmaa, University of Chicago, "Reverse Survivorship Bias"

Hui Chen, Scott Joslin, and Ngoc-Khanh Tran, MIT, "Rare Disasters and Risk Sharing with Heterogeneous Beliefs"

Maxim Ulrich, Columbia University, "Observable Long Run Ambiguity and Long Run Risk"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Corporate Finance met at the University of Chicago's Gleacher Center on April 23, 2010. Efraim Benmelech, NBER and Harvard University, and Nittai Bergman, NBER and MIT, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Martin Oehmke, Columbia University, and Patrick Bolton, Columbia University and NBER, "Credit Default Swaps and the Empty Creditor Problem"

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 Good Makers' Financial Distress? The Case of Auto Manufacturers"

Gara Afonso and Anna Kovner, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Antoinette Schoar, MIT and NBER, "Stressed, not Frozen: The Federal Funds Market in the Financial Crisis"

Jeremy C. Stein, Harvard University and NBER, "Monetary Policy as Financial-Stability Regulation"

Douglas W. Diamond, University of Chicago and NBER, and Zhiguo He, University of Chicago, "A Theory of Debt Maturity: The Long and Short of Debt Overhang"

Viral V. Acharya, New York University and NBER; Philipp Schnabl, New York University; and Gustavo Suarez, Federal Reserve Board, "Securitization without Risk Transfer"

Nicola Gennaioli, CREI; Andrei Shleifer, Harvard University and NBER; and Robert C. Vishny, University of Chicago and NBER, "Financial Innovation and Financial Fragility"

Shawn Cole and Thomas Sampson, Harvard University, and Bilal Zia, The World Bank, "Prices or Knowledge? What Drives Demand for Financial Services in Emerging Markets?"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Political Economy, directed by Alberto Alesina of Harvard University, met in Cambridge on April 23, 2010. These papers were discussed:

"Kosher Pork" -- Allan Drazen, University of Maryland and NBER, and Ethan Ilzetzki, London School of Economics

"The ‘Out of Africa’ Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development" -- Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor, Brown University

"War and Relatedness" -- Enrico Spolaore, Tufts University and NBER, and Romain Wacziarg, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER

"A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing" -- Alberto Alesina, and Eliana La Ferrara, Bocconi University

"A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis" -- Deniz Igan, Prachi Mishra, and Thierry Tressel, IMF

"Attitudes, Policies, and Work" -- Francesco Giavazzi, Bocconi University and NBER; Fabio Schiantarelli, Boston College; and Michel Serafinelli, University of California, Berkeley

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Behavioral Economics Working Group met at the University of Chicago's Gleacher Center on April 24, 2010. NBER Research Associates Nicholas C. Barberis of Yale University and Wei Xiong of Princeton University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Steven Malliaris and Hongjun Yan, Yale University, "Reputation Concerns and Slow-Moving Capital"

Zhi Da and Pengjie Gao, Notre Dame University, and Joseph Engeleberg, University of North Carolina, "The Sum of All FEARS: Investor Sentiment, Noise Trading, and Aggregate Volatility"

David Hirshleifer, University of California, Irvine, "Self-Enhancing Transmission Bias and Active Investing"

Pedro Bordalo, Harvard University; Nicola Gennaioli, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; and Andrei Shleifer, Harvard University and NBER, "Salience Theory of Choice under Risk"

Alok Kumar and Jeremy Page, University of Texas, and Oliver Spalt, Tilburg University, "Religious Beliefs, Gambling Attitudes, and Financial Market Outcomes"

Robin Greenwood, Harvard University and NBER, and David Thesmar, HEC Paris, "Stock Price Fragility"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Securitization Working Group met in Chicago on April 24, 2010. Research Associates Darrell Duffie and Kenneth Singleton, both of Stanford University, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Patrick Bolton, Columbia University and NBER, Xavier Freixas, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; and Joel Shapiro, Oxford University (UK), "The Credit Ratings Game"

Andrew Kimball, Moody's, "Ratings and the Demand for Structured Products"

Adam Ashcraft, Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Nicolae B. Garleanu, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; and Lasse H. Pedersen, New York University and NBER, "Two Monetary Tools: Interest Rates and Haircuts"

John Geanakoplos, Yale University, "Solving the Present Crisis and Managing the Leverage Cycle"

Viral V. Acharya, New York University and NBER; Philipp Schnabl, New York University; and Gustavo Suarez, Federal Reserve Board, "Securitization without Risk Transfer"

Zhiguo He, University of Chicago; In Gu Khang, Northwestern University; and Arvind Krishnamurthy, Northwestern University and NBER, "Balance Sheet Adjustments in the 2008 Crisis"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Children met in Cambridge on April 29, 2010. Program Director Janet Currie of Columbia University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Orazio Attanasio, University College London and NBER, and Katja Kaufmann, IGIER, "Educational Choices and Subjective Expectations of Returns to Schooling: Evidence on Intra-Household Decisions and Gender Differences"

Carlos Chiapa and José Luis Garrido, El Colegio del Mexico, and Silvia Prina, Case Western Reserve University, "The Effect of Social Programs and Exposure to Professionals on the Educational Aspirations of the Poor"

Jorge M. Agüero and Maithili Ramachandran, University of California, Riverside, "The Intergenerational Effects of Increasing Women's Schooling: Evidence from Zimbabwe"

David Deming, Harvard University, "Better Schools, Less Crime?"

Philip Oreopoulos, University of Toronto and NBER, and Kjell G. Salvanes, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, "How Large are the Returns to Schooling? Hint: Money isn't Everything"(NBER Working Paper No. 15339)

Jason M. Lindo, University of Oregon, "Parental Job Loss and Infant Health"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Education met in Cambridge on April 30. Program Director Caroline M. Hoxby of Stanford University organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

David N. Figlio, Northwestern University and NBER, and Cassandra M. D. Hart, Northwestern University, "Competitive Effects of Means-Tested School Vouchers"

Adalbert Mayer, Texas A&M University, "Empirical Evidence on the Role of Social Networks in Job-Search"

Nicholas Turner, University of Californai, San Diego, "Who Benefits from Student Aid? The Economic Incidence of Tax-Based Federal Student Aid"

C. Kirabo Jackson, Cornell University and NBER, "A Stitch in Time: The Effects of a Novel Incentive-Based High-School Intervention on College Outcomes"(NBER Working Paper No. 15722)

Simon Burgess, Ellen Greaves, Anna Vignoles and Deborah Wilson, University of Bristol, "What Parents Want: School Preferences and School Choice"

Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Duke University; Joshua Angrist and Parag Pathak, MIT and NBER; Susan Dynarski, University of Michigan and NBER; and Thomas J. Kane, Harvard University and NBER, "Accountability and Flexibility in Public Schools: Evidence from Boston's Charters and Pilots"(NBER Working Paper No. 15449)

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Program on Health Economics met in Cambridge on May 7, 2010. Program Director Michael Grossman of City University of New York and NBER Research Associate Ted Joyce of Baruch College organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Ted Joyce, and Ruoding Tan and Yuxiu Zhang, City University of New York, "Changes in Teen Fertility Following Access to the Pill and Abortion in the Early 1970s"

Anna Aizer, Brown University and NBER, and Laura Stroud, Brown University, "Education, Knowledge and the Evolution of Disparities in Health" (NBER Working Paper No. 15840)

Joshua Graff Zivin, University Of California, San Diego and NBER, and Matthew Neidell, Columbia University and NBER, "The Impact of Environmental Conditions on Worker Productivity"

William N. Evans, University of Notre Dame and NBER, and Timothy J. Moore, University of Maryland, "The Short-Term Mortality Consequences of Income Receipt"

Christopher Carpenter, University Of California, Irvine and NBER, and Sabina Postolek and Casey Warman, Queen's University, "Public-Place Smoking Laws and Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) in Public Places" (NBER Working Paper No. 15849)

Gautam Gowrisankaran, University of Arizona and NBER; Karen Norberg, Washington University in St. Louis and NBER; Steven Kymes, Dustin Stwalley and William Peck, Washington University in St. Louis; and Michael Chernew, Harvard University and NBER, "The Impact of Insurance-Based Wellness Incentives on Hospitalizations and Medical Care Use"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER's Working Group on Insurance, directed by Research Associates Ken Froot of Harvard Business School and Howard Kunreuther of the University of Pennsylvania, met in Cambridge on May 21, 2010. These papers were discussed:

Martin F. Grace, Georgia State University, and J. Tyler Leverty, University of Iowa, "How Tort Reform Affects Insurance Markets"

Brian Cheyne and Greg Nini, University of Pennsylvania, "Creditor Mandated Purchases of Corporate Insurance"

Francis Ghesquiere and Olivier Mahul, World Bank, "Financial Protection of the State against Natural Disasters"

Anastasia Kartasheva, University of Pennsylvania, and Sojung Park, California State University, Fullerton, "Rating Standards for Catastrophic Risks and the Insurers' Capital Structure"

John A. Major, Guy Carpenter & Company, Inc., "Information Asymmetry in the M-Curve Model"

Daniel Schwarcz, University of Minnesota, "Regulating Consumer Demand in Insurance Markets"

Liran Einav, Stanford University and NBER; Amy Finkelstein, MIT and NBER; Iuliana Pascu, MIT; and Mark R. Cullen, Yale University School of Medicine, "How General are Risk Preferences? Choices under Uncertainty in Different Domains" (NBER Working Paper No. 15686)

Summaries of these papers may be found here.