The NBER Reporter 2011 Number 3: Program and Working Group Meetings


Japan Project Meets
Economic Fluctuations and Growth Research Meeting
Economics of Household Saving

Japan Project Meets

The NBER together with the Center on the Japanese Economy and Business, The Center for Advanced Research in Finance, and the Australia-Japan Research Centre held a project meeting on the Japanese economy in Tokyo on June 24 and 25, 2011. The organizers were: Jennifer Corbett, Australia-Japan Research Centre; Charles Horioka, NBER and Osaka University; Anil K Kashyap, NBER and the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago; Kazuo Ueda, University of Tokyo; and David Weinstein, NBER and Columbia University. The following papers were discussed:

    Robert Dekle, University of Southern California; Hyeok Jeong, GRIPS; and Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Princeton University and NBER, "Dynamics of Trade and Heterogeneity in General Equilibrium"

    Gauti Eggertsson, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Paul R. Krugman, Princeton University and NBER, "Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap"

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

    Melvin Stephens Jr., University of Michigan and NBER, and Takashi Unayama, Kobe University, "The Consumption Response to Seasonal Income: Evidence from Japanese Public Pension Benefits" (NBER Working Paper No. 16342)

    Jess Diamond, University of California at San Diego, "Employment Status Persistence in the Japanese Labor Market"

    Shinji Takagi, Osaka University, "The Future Role of Japan in Asia"

    Takero Doi, Keio University; Takeo Hoshi, University of California at San Diego and NBER; and Tatsuyoshi Okimoto, Hitotsubashi University, "Japanese Government Debt and Sustainability of Fiscal Policy"

    Takeo Hoshi and Anil Kashyap, "Why Did Japan Stop Growing?"

    Hiroyuki Kasahara, University of British Columbia, and Yasuyuki Sawada and Michio Suzuki, University of Tokyo, "Investment and Borrowing Constraints: Evidence from Japanese Firms"

    Kohei Kubota and Fumio Ohtake, Osaka University; Charles Y. Horioka, Osaka University and NBER; Akiko Kamesaka, Aoyama Gakuin University; and Masao Ogaki, Keio University, "Cultures, Worldviews, and Intergenerational Altruism"

    Richard H. Steckel, Ohio State University and NBER; and Dongwoo Yoo, Ohio State University, "Property Rights and Financial Development: The Legacy of Japanese Colonial Institutions" (NBER Working Paper No. 16551)

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

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Economic Fluctuations and Growth Research Meeting

The NBER's Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth met in Cambridge on July 16. NBER Research Associates Susanto Basu of Boston College and John Cochrane of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

    George-Marios Angeletos, MIT and NBER, and Jennifer La'O, University of Chicago, "Decentralization, Communication, and the Origins of Fluctuations"

    Paul Beaudry, University of British Columbia and NBER; David A. Green, University of British Columbia; and Benjamin M. Sand, Copenhagen Business School, "How Elastic is the Job Creation Curve?"

    Veronica Guerrieri, University of Chicago and NBER, and Guido Lorenzoni, MIT and NBER, "Credit Crises, Precautionary Savings, and the Liquidity Trap"

    Mark A. Aguiar and Mark Bils, University of Rochester and NBER, "Has Consumption Inequality Mirrored Income Inequality" (NBER Working Paper No. 16807)

    Francois Gourio, Boston University and NBER, "Credit Risk and Disaster Risk" (NBER Working Paper No. 17026)

    Nicholas Bloom, Stanford University and NBER; Benn Eifert, University of California, Berkeley; Aprajit Mahajan and John Roberts, Stanford University; and David McKenzie, The World Bank, "Does Management Matter: Evidence from India" (NBER Working Paper No. 16658)

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

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Economics of Household Saving

NBER Research Associate Erik Hurst of the University of Chicago and NBER President James M. Poterba of MIT, who co-direct an NBER project on "The Economics of Household Saving", organized a meeting of that project on July 23, 2011. The following papers were discussed:

    Dimitrios Christelis, University of Salerno; Dimitris Georgarakos, Goethe University Frankfurt; and Tullio Jappelli, University of Naples Federico II, "Wealth Shocks, Unemployment Shocks, and Consumption in the Wake of the Great Recession"

    Sule Alan, Tom Crossley, and Hamish Low, University of Cambridge, "Household Consumption Behavior in Recessions"

    James M. Poterba; Steven Venti, Dartmouth College and NBER; and David A. Wise, Harvard University and NBER, "The Asset Cost of Poor Health" (NBER Working Paper No. 16389)

    Marianne Bertrand, University of Chicago and NBER, and Adair Morse, University of Chicago, "Consumption Contagion: Does the Consumption of the Very Rich Drive the Consumption of the Less Rich?"

    Song Han, Benjamin Keys, and Geng Li, Federal Reserve Board, "Credit Supply to Bankrupt Consumers: Evidence from Credit Card Mailings"

Summaries of these papers may be found here.

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