The NBER Reporter 2014 Number 2: Conferences

An NBER Conference on the Economics of Culture and Institutions took place in Cambridge on April 5, 2014. Research Associate Alberto Bisin of New York University and Faculty Research Fellow Paola Giuliano of the University of California, Los Angeles, organized the meeting. They chose these papers to discuss:

Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and Gerard Roland, University of California, Berkeley, "Culture, Institutions, and Democratization"

Davide Cantoni, University of Munich; Yuyu Chenv, Peking University; David Yufan Yang, Stanford University; Noam Yuchtman, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; and Y. Jane Zhang, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, "Curriculum and Ideology"

Ruixue Jia, University of California, San Diego, and Torsten Persson, IIES and NBER, "Ethnicity in Children and Mixed Marriages: Theory and Evidence from China"

Marianna Belloc, Sapienza University of Rome; Francesco Drago, University of Naples Federico II and CSEF; and Roberto Galbiati, CNRS and Sciences Po, "Earthquakes, Religion, and Transition to Self-Government in Italian Cities"

Yann Algan and Elizabeth Beasley, Sciences Po; Frank Vitaro, Université de Montréal; and Richard Tremblay, Université de Montréal - GRIP, "The Long-Term Impact of Social Skills Training at School Entry: A Randomized Controlled Trial"

Benjamin Enke and Anke Becker, Bonn Graduate School of Economics; Thomas Dohmen, Maastricht University; and Armin Falk, University of Bonn, "The Ancient Origins of the Cross-Country Heterogeneity in Risk Preferences"

Xi Chen, Yale University; Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University; and Xiaobo Zhang, International Food Policy Research Institute, "Peer Effects, Risk Pooling, and Status Seeking: What Explains Gift Spending Escalation in Rural China?"

Summaries of these papers may be found at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2014/CIs14/summary.html

The NBER's fifteenth annual Conference on Innovation Policy and the Economy took place in Washington on April 8, 2014. The conference was organized by Faculty Research Fellow William Kerr and Research Associate Josh Lerner of the Harvard Business School, and Research Associate Scott Stern of MIT. They chose these papers to discuss:

George Borjas, Harvard University and NBER, and Kirk Doran, University of Notre Dame, "How High-Skill Immigration Affects Science: Evidence from the Collapse of the USSR"

John Bound, University of Michigan and NBER; Murat Demirci, University of Virginia; Gaurav Khanna, University of Michigan; and Sarah Turner, University of Virginia and NBER, "Finishing Degrees and Finding Jobs"

Paula Stephan, Georgia State University and NBER; Chiara Franzoni, Politecnico di Milano; and Giuseppe Scellato, Politecnico di Torino, "International Competition for PhDs and Postdoctoral Scholars: What Does (and Does Not) Matter"

Sari Pekkala Kerr, Wellesley College; William Kerr; and William Lincoln, Johns Hopkins University, "Firms and the Economics of High-Skilled Immigration"

Richard Freeman, Harvard University and NBER, "Immigration, International Collaboration, and Innovation: Science and Technology Policy in the Global Economy"

Summaries of these papers may be found at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2014/IPEs14/summary.html

The NBER's Twenty-Ninth Macroeconomics Annual Conference, organized by Research Associates Jonathan Parker of MIT and Michael Woodford of Columbia University, took place in Cambridge on April 11 and 12, 2014. They selected these papers to discuss:

Robert Hall, Stanford University and NBER, "Quantifying the Lasting Harm to the U.S. Economy from the Financial Crisis"

Christopher Foote, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and Rich Ryan, University of Michigan, "Labor Market Polarization over the Business Cycle"

Hess Chung, Edward Herbst and Michael Kiley, Federal Reserve Board, "Effective Monetary Policy Strategies in New-Keynesian Models: A Re-Examination"

John Fernald, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Productivity and Potential Output Before, During, and After the Great Recession"

Tarek Alexander Hassan, University of Chicago and NBER, and Thomas Mertens, New York University, "Information Aggregation in a DSGE Model"

Robert Barsky, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and NBER; Susanto Basu, Boston College and NBER; and Keyoung Lee, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, "Whither News Shocks?"

Summaries of these papers may be found at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2014/Macro14/summary.html

An NBER Conference on Financing Housing Capital, organized by Research Associate Monika Piazzesi of Stanford University, took place on April 25, 2014 in Chicago. These papers were discussed:

Matteo Iacoviello and Luca Guerrieri, Federal Reserve Board, "Collateral Constraints and Macroeconomic Asymmetries"

Stefano Giglio, University of Chicago and NBER; Matteo Maggiori, New York University and NBER; and Johannes Stroebel, New York University, "Very Long-Run Discount Rates"

Michael Sockin, Princeton University, and Wei Xiong, Princeton University and NBER, "Learning about the Neighborhood: A Model of Housing Cycles"

David Scharfstein, Harvard University and NBER, and Adi Sunderam, Harvard University, "Concentration in Mortgage Lending, Refinancing Activity, and Mortgage Rates" (NBER Working Paper No. 19156)

Erik Hurst, Amit Seru, and Joseph Vavra, University of Chicago and NBER, and Benjamin Keys, University of Chicago, "Regional Risk Sharing Through the U.S. Mortgage Market"

Giovanni Favara, Federal Reserve Board, and Mariassunta Giannetti, Stockholm School of Economics, "Mortgage Concentration, Foreclosures and House Prices"

Summaries of these papers may be found at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2014/FHCs14/summary.html

In conjunction with the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, the NBER sponsored a meeting on "Monetary Policy and Financial Stability in Emerging Markets," which was held in Istanbul on June 13-15, 2014. The conference organizers were Research Associates Laurence Ball of Johns Hopkins University and Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan of the University of Maryland, and Turalay Kenc and Yusuf Soner Başkaya of The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. The organizers chose these papers to discuss:

Olivier Blanchard, International Monetary Fund and NBER, and Jonathan Ostry, Atish Ghosh, and Marcos Chamon, International Monetary Fund, "Capital Flow Management"

Emmanuel Farhi, Harvard University and NBER, and Ivan Werning, MIT and NBER, "Dilemma not Trilemma? Capital Controls and Exchange Rates with Volatile Capital Flows"

Kristin Forbes, MIT and NBER, and Michael Klein, Tufts University and NBER, "Shifting from a Salsa to a Waltz: The Consequences of Policy Responses during Global Booms"

Laura Alfaro, Harvard University and NBER; Anusha Chari, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and NBER; and Fabio Kanczuk, University of São Paolo, "The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Credit Constraints, Exporters and Firm Investment"

Cecilia Dassatti, Central Bank of Uruguay, and José-Luis Peydró, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, "Macroprudential and Monetary Policy: Loan-Level Evidence from Reserve Requirements"

Anton Korinek, Johns Hopkins University and NBER, and Damiano Sandri, International Monetary Fund, "Capital Controls or Macroprudential Regulation?"

Julien Bengui, Université de Montréal, and Javier Bianchi, University of Wisconsin, Madison, and NBER, "Capital Flow Management When Capital Controls Leak"

Koray Alper, Mahir Binici, Hakan Kara, and Pinar Özlü, Central Bank of Turkey, and Selva Demiralp, Koc University, "Required Reserves, Liquidity Risk, and Credit Growth"

Pablo Mariano Federico, BlackRock, Inc.; Carlos Vegh, Johns Hopkins University and NBER; and Guillermo Vuletin, Brookings Institution, "Effects and Role of Macroprudential Policy: Evidence from Reserve Requirements Based on a Narrative Approach"

Markus Brunnermeier, Princeton University and NBER, and Yuliy Sannikov, Princeton University, "International Credit Flows, Pecuniary Externalities, and Capital Controls"

Summaries of these papers may be found at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2014/MPFSs14/summary.html

The NBER's bi-annual Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar met in Vienna on June 16-18, 2014. The seminar, hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), focused on the topic of personal income taxation and household behavior. The meeting was co-organized by Research Associate Roger Gordon of the University of California, San Diego and IHS Director Christian Keuschnigg, who chose the following papers for discussion:

Richard Blundell, University College London and Institute for Fiscal Studies; Monica Costa Dias and Jonathan Shaw, Institute for Fiscal Studies; and Costas Meghir, Yale University and NBER, "Female Labor Supply, Human Capital, and Welfare Reform" (NBER Working Paper No. 19007)

Robert McClelland and Shannon Mok, Congressional Budget Office, and Kevin Pierce, Internal Revenue Service, "Labor Force Participation Elasticities of Women and Secondary Earners within Married Couples"

Aspen Gorry, Utah State University; Kevin Hassett and Aparna Mathur, American Enterprise Institute; and Glenn Hubbard, Columbia University and NBER, "The Elasticity of Deferred Income with Respect to Marginal Income Tax Rates"

Jon Bakija and William Gentry, Williams College, "Capital Gains Taxes and Realizations: Evidence from a Long Panel of State-Level Data"

Philipp Dörrenberg, Andreas Peichl, and Sebastian Siegloch, ZEW and IZA, "How Responsive Are Deductions to Tax Rate Changes?"

Dominika Langenmayr, University of Munich, "Voluntary Disclosure of Evaded Taxes - Increasing Revenues, or Increasing Incentives to Evade?"

John Beshears, David Laibson, and Brigitte Madrian, Harvard University and NBER, and James Choi, Yale University and NBER, "Does Front-Loading Taxation Increase Savings? Evidence from Roth 401(k) Introductions"

Jeffrey Brown, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NBER; James Poterba, MIT and NBER; and David Richardson, TIAA-CREF, "Do Required Minimum Distributions Constrain Household Behavior? The Effect of the 2009 Holiday on Retirement Savings Plan Distributions"

Jarkko Harju and Tuomas Matikka, Government Institute for Economic Research, "The Elasticity of Taxable Income and Income-shifting: What is 'Real' and What is Not?"

Luzi Hail and Stephanie Sikes, University of Pennsylvania, and Clare Wang, Northwestern University, "Cross-Country Evidence on the Relation between Capital-Gains Taxes, Risk, and Expected Returns"

Annette Alstadsæter, University of Oslo, and Martin Jacob, WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, "Do Dividend Taxes Affect Corporate Investment?"

Peter Egger and Katharina Erhardt, ETH Zürich, and Christian Keuschnigg, "Personal Income Taxes, Corporate Profit Taxes and the Heterogeneous Tax Sensitivity of Firm-Level Investments"

Summaries of these papers may be found at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2014/TAPES14/summary.html

The 25th Annual East Asian Seminar took place in Tokyo on June 20 and 21, 2014. This meeting was jointly sponsored by the NBER, the Tokyo Center for Economic Research, 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, and the Canon Institute for Global Studies. The meeting focused on "Unconventional Monetary Policy." The meeting was organized by NBER Research Associates Takatoshi Ito of the University of Tokyo and Andrew Rose of the University of California, Berkeley, along with Tsutomu Watanabe and Kosuke Aoki of the Center for Advanced Research in Finance at the University of Tokyo. The organizers chose these papers to discuss:

Takatoshi Ito, "We Are All QE-sians Now"

Lars Svensson, Stockholm School of Economics and NBER, "Inflation Targeting and Leaning Against the Wind: A Case Study"

Adair Morse and Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; and Anna Cieslak, Northwestern University, "Stock Returns over the FOMC Cycle"

John Fernald, Mark Spiegel and Eric Swanson, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Monetary Policy Effectiveness in China: Evidence from a FAVAR Model"

Randall Morck, University of Alberta and NBER; Deniz Yavuz, Purdue University; and Bernard Yeung, National University of Singapore, "State-Controlled Banks and the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy"

Gu Jin and Tao Zhu, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, "Non Neutrality of Money in Dispersion: Hume Revisited"

Leo Krippner, Reserve Bank of New Zealand and CAMA, "Measuring the Stance of Monetary Policy in Conventional and Unconventional Environments"

Byongju Lee, Woon Gyu Choi, Taesu Kang, and Geun-Young Kim, Bank of Korea, "U.S. Monetary Policy Normalization and EME Policy Mix from a Global Liquidity Perspective"

Roberto Rigobon, MIT and NBER, "Online Price Index: Congruence and Predictability of the Official CPI"

Tsutomu Watanabe and Kota Watanabe, Meiji University, "Estimating Daily Inflation Using Scanner Data: A Progress Report"

Ippei Fujiwara, Australian National University; Yoshiyuki Nakazono, Yokohama City University; and Kozo Ueda, Waseda University, "Policy Regime Change against Chronic Deflation? Policy Option under a Long-Term Liquidity Trap"

Chung-Shu Wu and Chun-Neng Peng, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research; Jin-Lung Lin, National Dong-Hwa University; and Hsiang-Yu Chin, National Chengchi University, "Capital Flows and Unconventional Monetary Policy"

Summaries of these papers may be found at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2014/EASE14/summary.html

The sixteenth annual CCER-NBER-Tsinghua University Conference on China and the World Economy took place at the China Center for Economic Research (CCER) in Beijing on June 25‒28, 2014. The conference was jointly organized by NBER Research Associate Shang-Jin Wei of Columbia University, Yang Yao of CCER, and Chong-En Bai of Tsinghua University. The organizers chose the following topics for discussion:

China and the Global Gconomy

Justin Lin, CCER, "China and the World Economy"

René Stulz, Ohio State University and NBER, "Bank Performance during a Crisis"

Financial Market

Joshua Aizenman, University of Southern California and NBER, "Real Estate Valuation in the Open Economy"

Yiping Huang, CCER, "Ownership and Credit Rationing in China"

Intergenerational Mobility

Nathaniel Hendren, Harvard University and NBER, "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States: Lessons from the Equality of Opportunity Project"

Chih Ming Tan, University of Dakota, and Zhibo Tan and Xiaobo Zhang, CCER, "Sins of the Father: The Intergenerational Legacy of the 1959-61 Great Chinese Famine on Children's Cognitive Development"

Xiaoyan Lei, CCER, "Intergenerational Mobility in Education: Evidence from CHARLS"

Trade

Pol Antras, Harvard University and NBER, "Contract Theory and Global Value Chains"

Shang-Jin Wei, "Sizing up Market Failures in Export Pioneering Activities"

Miaojie Yu, CCER, "Multiproduct Firms, Export Product Scope, and Trade Liberalization: The Role of Managerial Efficiency"

International Finance

Menzie Chinn, University of Wisconsin, Madison and NBER, "The Trilemma and Reserves: Measurement and Policy Implications"

Yang Yaov, "Financial Structure and Current Account Imbalances"

Jianguo Xu, CCER, "China A-share Stock Valuation: Fundamental Risk and Speculation Premium"

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "Global Safe Assets"

Jiandong Ju, Qing Liu, and Kang Shi, Tsinghua University, and Justin Lin, CCER, "A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Real Exchange Rate and Current Account Imbalances: Theory and Evidences from China"

Policies and Markets

Bruce Weinberg, Ohio State University and NBER, "Strengthening Scientific Performance: Lessons and Benefits"

Li Jin, Peking University and Oxford University, "The Effect of Political Career Concerns on Media Slant and Market Return: Evidence from China"

Chong-en Bai, Qing Liu, and Wen Yao, Tsinghua University, "Distortions to the Capital Market and their Implications on the Economic Structure: The Case of China"

Retirement

Alan Gustman, Dartmouth College and NBER, "Pensions, Social Security and Retirement"

Yaohui Zhao, CCER, "Working After Processing Retirement: Evidence from CHARLS"

Bo Zhao, CCER, "Too Poor to Retire? House Prices and Retirement"

College Education

Bridget Long, Harvard University and NBER, "Making College Education Accessible to Disadvantaged Students (1)"

Susan Dynarski, University of Michigan and NBER, "Making College Education Accessible to Disadvantaged Students (2)"

Hongbin Li, Tsinghua University, "China's College Education"

NBER's 37th International Seminar on Macroeconomics (ISOM) took place in Riga on June 27 and 28, 2014. The seminar was organized by Research Associates Richard Clarida of Columbia University, Jeffrey Frankel of Harvard University, Francesco Giavazzi of Bocconi University, and Hélène Rey of London Business School. The organizers chose the following papers for discussion:

Kristin Forbes, MIT and NBER; Marcel Fratzscher, DIW Berlin and CEPR; and Roland Straub, European Central Bank, "Capital Controls and Macroprudential Measures: What Are They Good For?"

Agustín Bénétrix and Philip Lane, Trinity College Dublin, and Jay Shambaugh, George Washington University and NBER, "International Currency Exposures, Valuation Effects, and the Global Financial Crisis"

Cecilia Hornok, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Miklos Koren, Central European University, "Lumpy Trade and the Welfare Effects of Administrative Barriers"

Òscar Jordà, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Moritz Schularick, University of Bonn; and Alan Taylor, University of California, Davis and NBER, "Betting the House"

Evi Pappa, Rana Sajedi, and Eugenia Vella, European University Institute, "Fiscal Consolidation with Tax Evasion and Rent Seeking"

Alberto Alesina, Harvard University and NBER; Carlo Favero, Bocconi University; and Francesco Giavazzi, "The Output Effect of Fiscal Consolidation Plans"

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University and NBER, and Vincent Reinhart, Morgan Stanley, "Effective Defaults on Sovereign Debt in Advanced Countries"

Matthias Efing, Swiss Finance Institute; Harald Hau, University of Geneva; Patrick Kampkötter, University of Cologne, and Johannes Steinbrecher, Ifo Dresden, "Incentive Pay and Bank Risk Taking: Evidence from Austrian, German, and Swiss Banks"

Summaries of these papers may be found at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2014/ISOM14/summary.html