The NBER Reporter 2011 Number 3: Conferences

The NBER held a conference on "The Global Financial Crisis" in Bretton Woods, NH on June 3 and 4, 2011. NBER Research Associates Charles Engel of the University of Wisconsin, Kristin Forbes of MIT, and Jeffrey Frankel of Harvard's Kennedy School organized the meeting and chose the following papers for discussion:

• Bergljot Barkbu and Ashoka Mody, IMF, and Barry Eichengreen, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, "International Financial Crises and the IMF: What the Historical Record Shows"

• Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, University of Houston and NBER; Bent Sorensen, University of Houston; and Sevcan Yesiltas, Johns Hopkins University, "Leverage across Firms, Banks, and Countries"

• Kristin Forbes, and Francis E. Warnock, University of Virginia and NBER, "Capital Flow Waves: Surges, Stops, Flight, and Retrenchment"

• Carol Bertaut, Laurie Pounder DeMarco, Steve Kamin, and Ralph Tryon, Federal Reserve Board, "ABS Inflows to the United States and the Global Financial Crisis"

• Galina Hale, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Bank Relationships, Business Cycles, and Financial Crisis"

• Nicola Cetorelli, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Linda S. Goldberg, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and NBER, "Liquidity Management of U.S. Global Banks: Internal Capital Markets in the Great Recession"

• Andrew K. Rose, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, and Mark M. Spiegel, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Dollar Illiquidity and Central Bank Facilities during the U.S. Sub-Prime Crisis"

• Marcos Chamon, Atish R. Ghosh, Jonathan D. Ostry, and Mahvash S. Qureshi, IMF, "Managing Capital Inflows: The Role of Controls and Prudential Policies"

• Marcel Fratzscher, European Central Bank, "Capital Flows, Global Shocks and the 2007-08 Financial Crisis"

• Claudio Raddatz and Sergio Schmukler, The World Bank, "On the International Transmission of Shocks: Micro-Evidence from Mutual Fund Portfolios"

• Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, University of California at Berkeley and NBER; Helene Rey, London Business School and NBER; and Kai Truempler, London Business School, "The Financial Crisis and The Geography of Wealth Transfers"

• Philip Lane, Trinity College Dublin, and Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, IMF, "External Adjustment and the Global Crisis"

• Stijn Claessens and Hui Tong, IMF, and Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia University and NBER, "The Channels for the Real Collateral Damage of the 2008-2009 Global Crisis: Evidence from Firms in 42 Countries"

• Kathryn M.E. Dominguez, University of Michigan and NBER; Yuko Hashimoto, IMF; and Takatoshi Ito, University of Tokyo and NBER, "International Reserves and the Global Financial Crisis"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

NBER's 34th International Seminar on Macroeconomics (ISOM) took place on June 17 and 18, 2011. NBER Research Associate Jeffery A. Frankel of Harvard's Kennedy School and Christopher Pissarides of the London School of Economics organized this year's program. The following papers were discussed:

• Barry Eichengreen and Andrew K. Rose, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, "Flexing: Effects of Abandoning Fixed Exchange Rates"

• Alejandro Justiniano, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Claudio Michelacci, CEMFI, "The Cyclical Behavior of Unemployment and Vacancies in the U.S. and Europe"

• Enrico Spolaore, Tufts University and NBER, and Romain Wacziarg, University of California at Los Angeles and NBER, "Long-Term Barriers to the Diffusion of Innovations"

• Giancarlo Corsetti, University of Cambridge, "Nontraded Goods Prices, Terms of Trade, and Risk Sharing"

• Julian di Giovanni, International Monetary Fund, and Andrei Levchenko, University of Michigan and NBER, "The Risk Content of Exports: A Portfolio View of International Trade" (NBER Working Paper No. 16005)

• Gilles St. Paul, Toulouse School of Economics, "Toward a Political Economy of Macroeconomic Thinking"

• Joshua Aizenman, University of California at Santa Cruz and NBER, and Yothin Jinjarak, University of London, "The Fiscal Stimulus in 2009-11: Trade Openness, Fiscal Space and Exchange Rate Adjustment"

• Gianmarco Ottaviano, Bocconi University, "Pricing-to-market, Intra-Industry Reallocations and Macroeconomic Dynamics"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The NBER, the Australian National University, the China Center for Economic Research, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Korea Development Institute, the National University of Singapore, Tsinghua University, and the Tokyo Center for Economic Research jointly sponsored the NBER's 22nd Annual East Asian Seminar on Economics. It took place on June 24 and 25, 2011 at Peking University. Takatoshi Ito, University of Tokyo and NBER, and Andrew K. Rose, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, organized the conference, which focused on "The Role of Government." These papers were discussed:

• Qingyuan Du, Columbia University, and Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia University and NBER, "A Darwinian Perspective on the Chinese Real Exchange Rate"

• Martin Berka, Massey University, and Michael B. Devereux, University of British Columbia and NBER, "What Determines European Real Exchange Rates?" (NBER Working Paper No. 15753)

• Yi Wen, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, "Making Sense of China's Excessive Foreign Reserves"

• Woochan Kim, KDI School of Public Policy and Management, "Korea Investment Corporation: Its Origin and Evolution"

• Binkai Chen, Central University of Finance and Economics, and Yang Yao, Peking University, "The Cursed Virtue: Government Infrastructural Investment and Household Consumption in Chinese Provinces"

• Hyungkwon Jeong, Bank of Korea, and Sung Wook W. Joh, Seoul National University, "Risk Taking of 'TBTF' Banks in a Concentrated Market: Evidence from Surviving Banks after a Financial Crisis"

• Zvi Bodie, Boston University, and Joseph Cherian and Chua Wee Kang, National University of Singapore, "Worry-free Inflation-Indexing for Sovereigns: How Governments can Effectively Deliver Inflation-Indexed Returns to Their Citizens and Retirees"

• Chong En Bai and Binzhen Wu, Tsinghua University, "Payroll Tax and Household Consumption"

• Bruce D. Meyer, University of Chicago and NBER, and James X. Sullivan, University of Notre Dame, "Consumption and Income Inequality in the U.S. Since the 1960s"

• Lucas W. Davis and Catherine Wolfram, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, "Deregulation, Consolidation, and Efficiency: Evidence from U.S. Nuclear Power"

• Ayako Kondo, Osaka University, and Hitoshi Shigeoka, Columbia University, "Effects of Universal Health Insurance on Health Care Utilization and Health Outcomes: Evidence from Japan"

• Janet Currie, Princeton University and NBER, and Erdal Tekin, Georgia State University and NBER, "Is the Foreclosure Crisis Making Us Sick?"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

The thirteenth annual NBER-CCER Conference on China and the World Economy took place at the China Center for Economic Research (CCER) in Beijing on June 29 - July 1, 2011. The conference program was jointly arranged by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the CCER at Beijing University, and Tsinghua University. After opening remarks by James M. Poterba of NBER and MIT, Yang Yao of CCER, and David Li of Tsinghua University, the following topics were discussed:

• Yiping Huang, CCER, "China's Capital Account Liberalization"

• David Li, Tsinghua University, "An Emerging Policy Paradigm of China's Macroeconomic Policy"

• James Poterba, MIT and NBER, "The Long-Term U.S. Fiscal Challenge")

• Julio Rotemberg, Harvard Business School and NBER, "Behavioral and Institutional Roots of Financial Instability"

• Patrick Bolton, Columbia University and NBER, "Contingent Capital and Counter-Cyclical Investment Strategies"

• Martin Schneider, Stanford University and NBER, "Borrowing and House Prices"

• Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia University and NBER, "Mating Competition and Housing Market Characteristics"

• Fan He, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "Demographic Change and Housing Prices"

• Bentley MacLeod, Columbia University and NBER, "The Anti-Lemons Effect and the Market for Education"

• Li-An Zhou, Peking University Graduate School of Management, "Estimating the Return to Education: Evidence from China's Schooling Reform"

• Tao Li, HSBC School of Business, Peking University, "Intergeneration Status and Marital Sorting"

• Hongbin Cai, Graduate School of Management, Peking University, "Land Market Auctions in China: Evidence of Corruption?"

• Michelle J. White, University of California, San Diego and NBER, "Local Government Tax Incentives and Land Use in the United States"

• Lixing Li, CCER, "Land Titling in China: the Chengdu Experiment and Its Consequences"

• Monika Piassezi, Stanford University and NBER, "Interest Rate Risk in Credit Markets"

• Qiao Liu, Peking University Graduate School of Management, "The Evolution and Consequence of Chinese Pyramids"

• Ailsa Roell, Columbia University, "Managerial Pay and Stock Price Manipulation"

• Xiaojing Zhang and Cheng Li, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "Making Room for China's Currency: Development Potential and Future Path of Renminbi Internationalization"

• David Scharfstein, Harvard Business School and NBER, "Housing Finance and Financial Stability"

• Jiandong Ju, Tsinghua University, "Industry Dynamics and Economic Growth"

• Chong-En Bai and Binzhen Wu, Tsinghua University, "Payroll Tax and Household Consumption"

• Roger Gordon, University of California, San Diego and NBER, "The Role of the Corporate Tax"

• Fan Zhang, CCER, "Government Control in the Process of Market Liberalization"

• Feng Lu, CCER, "Changing Labor Supply in China"

• Yan Shen, CCER, "New Evidence of Income Distribution in China"

• Hongbin Cai and Yuyu Chen, Graduate School of Management, Peking University, "Polluting Thy Neighbor: Problem of River Commons in China"

• Edward Lazear, Stanford University and NBER, "The Fiscal Situation, Economic Recovery and the Labor Market"

• Yaohui Zhao, CCER, "Rural Health Care in China"

• Janet Currie, Columbia University and NBER, "Health Inequality in Early Life: Consequences for Human Capital Formation"