The NBER Reporter 2013 Number 1: Program and Working Group Meetings

The NBER's Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth met at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on February 8, 2013. Matthias Doepke, Northwestern University, and Emmanuel Farhi, Harvard University, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Zhen Huo, University of Minnesota, and Jose-Victor Rios-Rull, University of Minnesota and NBER, "Engineering a Paradox of Thrift Recession"

Simeon Alder, University of Notre Dame; David Lagakos, Arizona State University; and Lee Ohanian, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, "The Decline of the U.S. Rust Belt: A Macroeconomic Analysis"

Raj Chetty and John Friedman, Harvard University and NBER; Soren Leth-Petersen, University of Copenhagen; Torben Nielsen, The Danish National Center for Social Research; and Tore Olsen, Harvard University, "Active vs. Passive Decisions and Crowdout in Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Denmark" (NBER Working Paper No. 18565)

Lawrence Christiano and Martin S. Eichenbaum, Northwestern University and NBER, and Mathias Trabandt, Federal Reserve Board, "Unemployment and Business Cycles"

Andrew Atkeson and Pierre-Olivier Weill, University of California at Los Angeles and NBER, and Andrea Eisfeldt, University of California at Los Angeles, "The Market for OTC Derivatives"

Guido Menzio, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, and Greg Kaplan, Princeton University and NBER, "Shopping Externalities and Self-Fulfilling Unemployment Fluctuations"

Summaries of these papers may be found at http://www.nber.org/confer/2013/EFGw13/summary.html

The NBER's Program on Labor Studies, directed by David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, met at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on February 22, 2013. These papers were discussed:

Raven Molloy and Christopher Smith, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and Abigail Wozniak, University of Notre Dame and NBER, "Declining Migration within the US: The Role of the Labor Market"

Jesse Gregory, University of Michigan, "The Impact of Rebuilding Grants and Wage Subsidies on the Resettlement Choices of Hurricane Katrina Victims"

Patrick Kline, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, and Melissa Tartari, Yale University, "What Distributional Impacts Mean: Welfare Reform Experiments and Competing Margins of Adjustment"

Gary Chamberlain, Harvard University and NBER, "Predictive Effects of Teachers and Schools on Test Scores, College Attendance, and Earnings"

Gordon Dahl, University of California at San Diego and NBER; Dan-Olof Rooth and Magnus Carlsson, Linnaeus University; and Bjorn Ockert, Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, "The Effect of Schooling on Cognitive Skills" (NBER Working Paper No. 18484)

Edward Lazear and Kathryn Shaw, Stanford University and NBER, and Christopher Stanton, University of Utah, "The Value of Bosses" (NBER Working Paper No. 18317)

Summaries of these papers may be found at http://www.nber.org/confer/2013/LSs13/summary.html

The NBER's Program on Industrial Organization, directed by Nancy Rose of MIT, met in Stanford, CA on February 22 and 23, 2013. Ryan Kellogg, NBER and University of Michigan, and Gregory Lewis, NBER and Harvard University, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

David Muir and Katja Seim, University of Pennsylvania, and Maria Ana Vitorino, University of Minnesota, "Drip Pricing When Consumers Have Limited Foresight: Evidence from Driving School Fees"

Sanjog Misra, University of California, Los Angeles, and Harikesh Nair and Oystein Daljord, Stanford University, "Salesforce Composition and Compensation"

Meghan Busse and Florian Zettelmeyer, Northwestern University and NBER, and Ayelet Israeli, Northwestern University, "Repairing the Damage: The Effect of Price Expectations on Auto-Repair Price Quotes"

Allan Collard-Wexler, New York University and NBER, and Jan De Loecker, Princeton University and NBER, "Reallocation and Technology: Evidence from the U.S. Steel Industry" (NBER Working Paper No. 18739)

Francesco Decarolis, Boston University, "What Does Medicare D Share with LIBOR and Procurement Auctions? The Distortionary Effects of the Low Income Subsidy"

Ying Fan, Kai-Uwe Kuhn, and Francine Lafontaine, University of Michigan, "Financial Constraints and Franchising Decisions"

Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro, University of Chicago and NBER, and Michael Sinkinson, University of Pennsylvania, "Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers" (NBER Working Paper No. 18234)

Summaries of these papers may be found at http://www.nber.org/confer/2013/IOs13/summary.html

The NBER's Program on Health Care met in Cambridge on March 1, 2013. Program Director Jonathan Gruber, NBER and MIT, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Mireille Jacobson, RAND Corporation and NBER; Joseph Newhouse, Harvard University and NBER; and Craig Earle, Harvard University, "Can Physician Induced Demand Benefit Patients? Evidence from a Major Change to Medicare Chemotherapy Reimbursement Policy"

Robert Kaestner, University of Illinois and NBER, and Anthony Lo Sasso, University of Illinois at Chicago, "Does Seeing the Doctor More Often Keep You Out of the Hospital?"

Jason Abaluck, Yale University and NBER, and Leila Agha, Boston University, "Negative Tests and the Efficiency of Medical Care: Investigating the Determinants of Imaging Overuse"

Benjamin Handel, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, and Jonathan Kolstad, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, "Health Insurance for Humans: Information Frictions, Plan Choice, and Consumer Welfare"

David Cutler, Harvard University and NBER; Jonathan Skinner, Dartmouth College and NBER; Ariel Stern, Harvard University; and David Wennberg, Dartmouth Medical School, "Physician Beliefs and Patient Preferences: A New Look at Supplier-Induced Demand"

Summaries of these papers are available at http://www.nber.org/confer/2013/HCs13/summary.html

The NBER's Program on the Development of the American Economy, directed by Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, met in Cambridge on March 2, 2013. The meeting was organized by Daniel Fetter and Eric Hilt, Wellesley College and NBER. These papers were discussed:

Hoyt Bleakley, University of Chicago and NBER, and Joseph Ferrie, Northwestern University and NBER, "Land Openings on the Georgia Frontier and the Coase Theorem in the Short and Long Run"

Melissa Dell, Harvard University and NBER, "Path Dependence in Development: Evidence from the Mexican Revolution"

Leticia Arroyo Abad, University of California at Davis, and Noel Maurer, Harvard University and NBER, "Fiscal Receiverships and Charter Cities, 1904-31"

Matthew Jaremski, Colgate University and NBER, and Peter Rousseau, Vanderbilt University, "The Rise of Commercial Bank Deposits in the United States"

Marc Weidenmier, Claremont McKenna College and NBER; Joseph Davis, The Vanguard Group; and Ryan Shaffer, Claremont McKenna College, "America's First Great Moderation"

Charles Calomiris, Columbia University and NBER, and Jonathan Pritchett, Tulane University, "Betting on Secession: Quantifying Political Events Surrounding Slavery and the Civil War"

Summaries of these papers are available at http://www.nber.org/confer/2013/DAEs13/summary.html

The NBER's Monetary Economics Program met at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on March 8, 2012. NBER Research Associates Anil Kashyap and Amir Sufi, University of Chicago Booth School, organized this program:

Gary Gorton and Andrew Metrick, Yale University and NBER, and Lei Xie, Yale University, "The Flight from Maturity"

Samuel Hanson and Adi Sunderam, Harvard University, and David Scharfstein, Harvard University and NBER, "An Evaluation of Money Market Fund Reform Proposals"

David Lucca and Emanuel Moench, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, "The Pre-FOMC Announcement Drift"

James Costain and Anton Nakov, Bank of Spain, "Logit Price Dynamics"

Matthias Doepke, Northwestern University and NBER, and Martin Schneider, Stanford University and NBER, "On the Optimality of a Dominant Unit of Account"

Lars Svensson, Sveriges Riksbank and NBER, "The Possible Unemployment Cost of Average Inflation below a Credible Target"

Summaries of these papers may be found at http://www.nber.org/confer/2013/MEs13/summary.html