Conferences 2017:2

The NBER Reporter 2017 Number 2:

Conferences

32nd Annual Conference on Macroeconomics
Economics of Culture and Institutions
Economic Effects of State Business Taxation
Economics of Energy Markets
Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the 21st Century
New Developments in Long-Term Asset Management
Trade and Geography
Transporting Hydrocarbons
Understanding Productivity Growth in Agriculture

Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the 21st Century

The NBER hosted a Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (CRIW) meeting, "Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the 21st Century," in Washington, D.C., on March 10-11. Carol Corrado of The Conference Board, Javier Miranda of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Jonathan Haskel of Imperial College London, and Research Associate Daniel Sichel of Wellesley College organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Charles Hulten, University of Maryland and NBER, and Leonard Nakamura, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, "We See the Digital Revolution Everywhere Except in Real GDP"

    Katharine Abraham and John Haltiwanger, University of Maryland and NBER, and Kristin Sandusky and James Spletzer, Bureau of the Census, "Measuring the Gig Economy: Current Knowledge and Open Issues"

    Dominique Guellec and Caroline Paunov, OECD, "Digital Innovation and the Distribution of Income"

    Lucia Foster, Cheryl Grim, and Zoltan Wolf, Bureau of the Census, and John Haltiwanger, "Innovation, Productivity Growth, and Productivity Dispersion"

    Wesley Cohen, Duke University and NBER, and You-Na Lee and John Walsh, Georgia Institute of Technology, "Measuring the Several Faces of Innovation"

    Emin Dinlersoz, Nathan Goldschlag, and Nikolas Zolas, Bureau of the Census, and Amanda Myers, Patent and Trademark Office, "An Anatomy of Trademarking by Firms in the United States"

    Nathan Goldschlag, Ron Jarmin, and Nikolas Zolas, Bureau of the Census, and Julia Lane, New York University, "The Link between University R&D, Human Capital, and Business Startups"

    Javier Miranda and Nikolas Zolas, "Measuring the Impact of Household Innovation Using Administrative Data"

    Pierre Mohnen, Maastricht University (Netherlands), and Michael Polder and George van Leeuwen, Statistics Netherlands, "ICT and Innovation"

    Wen Chen, Bart Los, and Marcel Timmer, University of Groningen (Netherlands), "Measuring the Returns to Intangibles: A Global Value Chain Approach"

    Alexis Grimm, Bureau of Economic Analysis, "Trends in U.S. Trade in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Services and in ICT-Enabled Services"

    Kenneth Flamm, University of Texas at Austin, "Has Moore's Law Been Suspended or Repealed? An Empirical Economic Analysis of the Pace of Innovation in Semiconductors"

    David Byrne, Federal Reserve Board, and Carol Corrado, "Accounting for Innovation in Consumer ICT Services"

    David Byrne, Carol Corrado, and Daniel Sichel, Wellesley College and NBER, "The Rise of Cloud Computing: Minding Your Ps and Qs"

    Ana Aizcorbe and David Wasshausen, Bureau of Economic Analysis, "BEA Deflators for Information and Communications Technology Goods and Services: Historical Analyses and Future Plans"

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/CRIWs17/summary.html

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Trade and Geography

An NBER Conference, "Trade and Geography," took place in Cambridge on March 30. International Trade and Investment Program Director Stephen J. Redding and Research Associate Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, both of Princeton University, organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Emi Nakamura and Jón Steinsson, Columbia University and NBER, and Jósef Sigurdsson, Stockholm University, "The Gift of Moving: Intergenerational Consequences of a Mobility Shock" (NBER Working Paper No. 22392)

    Pablo Fajgelbaum, University of California, Los Angeles, and NBER, and Edouard Schaal, CREI (Barcelona), "Optimal Transport Networks in Spatial Equilibrium" (NBER Working Paper No. 23200)

    Enghin Atalay, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Mary Jialin Li, University of Chicago; and Ali Hortaçsu and Chad Syverson, University of Chicago and NBER, "How Wide Is the Firm Border?"

    Melanie Morten, Stanford University and NBER, and Jaqueline Oliveira, Rhodes College, "The Effects of Roads on Migration and Trade: Evidence from a Planned Capital City"

    David Lagakos, University of California, San Diego, and NBER; Ahmed M. Mobarak, Yale University and NBER; and Michael E. Waugh, New York University and NBER, "The Welfare Effects of Encouraging Rural-Urban Migration"

    Ariel Burstein, University of California, Los Angeles, and NBER; Gordon Hanson, University of California, San Diego, and NBER; Lin Tian, Columbia University; and Jonathan Vogel, Columbia University and NBER, "Tradability and the Labor-Market Impact of Immigration: Theory and Evidence from the U.S." (NBER Working Paper No. 23330)

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/TGs17/summary.html

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32nd Annual Conference on Macroeconomics

The NBER's 32nd Annual Conference on Macroeconomics took place in Cambridge on April 7-8. Research Associates Martin Eichenbaum of Northwestern University and Jonathan Parker of MIT organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Charles Manski, Northwestern University and NBER, "Survey Measurement of Probabilistic Macroeconomic Expectations: Progress and Promise" (NBER Working Paper No. 23418)

    John H. Cochrane, Stanford University and NBER, "Michelson-Morley, Occam, and Fisher: The Radical Implications of Stable Inflation at Near-Zero Interest Rates"

    Steven N. Durlauf, University of Wisconsin-Madison and NBER, and Ananth Seshadri, University of Wisconsin-Madison, "Understanding the Great Gatsby Curve"

    Manuel Adelino, Duke University; Antoinette Schoar, MIT and NBER; and Felipe Severino, Dartmouth College, "Dynamics of Housing Debt in the Recent Boom and Bust"

    Efraim Benmelech, Northwestern University and NBER, and Nittai Bergman, MIT and NBER, "Credit Market Freezes"

    SeHyoun Ahn and Christian Wolf, Princeton University; Greg Kaplan, University of Chicago and NBER; Benjamin Moll, Princeton University and NBER; and Thomas Winberry, University of Chicago and NBER, "When Inequality Matters for Macro and Macro Matters for Inequality"

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/Macro17/summary.html

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Economics of Culture and Institutions

An NBER conference, "Economics of Culture and Institutions," took place in Cambridge on April 21-22. Research Associates Alberto Bisin of New York University and Paola Giuliano of University of California, Los Angeles, organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Oded Galor, Brown University and NBER; Ömer Özak, Southern Methodist University; and Assaf Sarid, University of Haifa (Israel), "Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures"

    Leonardo Bursztyn, University of Chicago and NBER; Thomas Fujiwara, Princeton University and NBER; and Amanda Pallais, Harvard University and NBER, "'Acting Wife': Marriage Market Incentives and Labor Market Investments" (NBER Working Paper No. 23043)

    Sascha O. Becker, University of Warwick (U.K.), and Luigi Pascali, Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona), "Religion, Division of Labor, and Conflict: Anti-Semitism in German Regions over 600 Years"

    Felipe Valencia Caicedo, University of Bonn (Germany), "The Mission: Human Capital Transmission, Economic Persistence, and Culture in South America"

    Ruixue Jia, University of California, San Diego, and Hongbin Li, Stanford University, "Access to Elite Education, Wage Premium, and Social Mobility: The Truth and Illusion of China's College Entrance Exam"

    Filipe R. Campante, Harvard University and NBER, and Davin Chor, National University of Singapore, "'Just Do Your Job': Obedience, Routine Tasks, and the Pattern of Specialization"

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/CIs17/summary.html

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Economic Effects of State Business Taxation

An NBER conference, "Economic Effects of State Business Taxation," supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation, took place in Cambridge on May 5. NBER President James M. Poterba of MIT and Research Associate Joshua Rauh of Stanford University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Scott R. Baker, Northwestern University, and Lorenz Kueng, Northwestern University and NBER, "Shopping for Lower Sales Tax Rates"

    Julian Atanassov, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Xiaoding Liu, University of Oregon, "Taxes, Pledgeable Income, and Innovation"

    Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato, Duke University and NBER, and Owen M. Zidar, University of Chicago and NBER, "The Structure of State Corporate Taxation and Its Impact on State Tax Revenues and Economic Activity"

    Mark Curtis, Wake Forest University, and Ryan Decker, Federal Reserve Board, "Entrepreneurship and State Policy"

    Clemens Fuest, CESifo (Munich), and Andreas Peichl and Sebastian Siegloch, University of Mannheim (Germany), "Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany"

    Evan E. Mast, Stanford University, "Race to the Bottom? Local Tax Break Competition and Business Location"

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/SBTs17/summary.html

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Understanding Productivity Growth in Agriculture

An NBER Conference, "Understanding Productivity Growth in Agriculture," took place in Cambridge on May 11–12. The conference was supported by the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Giannini Foundation at the University of California, Davis. Research Associate Wolfram Schlenker of Columbia University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Jayson L. Lusk, Oklahoma State University, and Jesse B. Tack and Nathan P. Hendricks, Kansas State University, "Heterogeneous Yield Impacts from Adoption of Genetically Engineered Corn and the Importance of Controlling for Weather"

    Hsing-Hsiang Huang, Environmental Protection Agency, and Michael Moore, University of Michigan, "Farming under Weather Risk: Adaptation, Moral Hazard, and Selection on Moral Hazard"

    Cecilia Bellora, CEPII (Paris); Elodie Blanc, MIT; Jean-Marc Bourgeon, INRA (Paris); and Eric Strobl, École Polytechnique (France), "Estimating the Impact of Crop Diversity on Agricultural Productivity in South Africa"

    Christine L. Carroll, California State University, Chico, and Colin A. Carter, Rachael Goodhue, and C.-Y. Cynthia Lin Lawell, University of California, Davis, "Crop Disease and Agricultural Productivity"

    Sun Ling Wang, Eldon Ball, Richard Nehring, and Ryan Williams, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Truong Chau, Pennsylvania State University, "Impacts of Climate Change and Extreme Weather on U.S. Agricultural Productivity: Evidence and Projection"

    Mark Brown, Statistics Canada; Shon M. Ferguson, Research Institute of Industrial Economics (Stockholm); and Crina Viju, Carleton University (Ottawa), "Agricultural Trade Reform, Reallocation, and Technical Change: Evidence from the Canadian Prairies"

    Wyatt Brooks and Kevin Donovan, University of Notre Dame, "Eliminating Uncertainty in Market Access: The Impact of New Bridges in Rural Nicaragua"

    Sebastian Sotelo, University of Michigan, "Domestic Trade Frictions and Agriculture"

    Reena Badiani, World Bank, and Katrina Jessoe, University of California, Davis, "Electricity Prices, Ground-water, and Agriculture: The Environmental and Agricultural Impacts of Electricity Subsidies in India"

    Hannah Krovetz, University of California, Davis, and Rebecca Taylor and Sofia Villas-Boas, University of California, Berkeley, "Willingness to Pay for Low Water Footprint Food Choices during Drought"

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/PGAs17/summary.html

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New Developments in Long-Term Asset Management

An NBER conference, "New Developments in Long-Term Asset Management," supported by Norges Bank Investment Management, took place in London on May 19-20. Asset Pricing Program Director Monika Piazzesi of Stanford University and Research Associate Luis M. Viceira of Harvard University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Marcin Kacperczyk and Emiliano Pagnotta, Imperial College London, "Chasing Private Information"

    Nicolae B. Gârleanu, University of California, Berkeley, and NBER, and Lasse H. Pedersen, Copenhagen Business School, "Efficiently Inefficient Markets for Assets and Asset Management" (NBER Working Paper No. 21563)

    Matthijs Breugem, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, and Adrian Buss, INSEAD (France), "Institutional Investors and Information Acquisition: Implications for Asset Prices and Informational Efficiency"

    Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Harvard University and NBER; Andra C. Ghent, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Valentin Haddad, University of California, Los Angeles, and NBER, "Asset Insulators"

    Anton Lines, London Business School, "Do Institutional Incentives Distort Asset Prices?"

    Marco Di Maggio, Harvard University and NBER; Francesco Franzoni and Carlo Sommavilla, Swiss Finance Institute; and Amir Kermani, University of California, Berkeley, and NBER, "The Relevance of Broker Networks for Information Diffusion in the Stock Market"

    Kevin Pan, Harvard University, and Yao Zeng, University of Washington, "ETF Arbitrage under Liquidity Mismatch"

    Erik Stafford, Harvard University, "Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting"

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/LTAMs17/summary.html

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Transporting Hydrocarbons

An NBER conference, "Transporting Hydrocarbons," took place in Washington, D.C., on May 23. The meeting was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It was organized by Research Associates James B. Bushnell of the University of California, Davis; Ryan Kellogg of the University of Chicago; and Erin T. Mansur of Dartmouth College. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Thomas Covert, and Ryan Kellogg, both University of Chicago and NBER, "Crude by Rail, Option Value, and Pipeline Investment"

    Frank A. Wolak, Stanford University and NBER, and Wesley W. Wilson, University of Oregon, "Regulation by Price Benchmarks: Protecting Small Shippers from the Exercise of Railroad Market Power"

    James B. Bushnell, University of California, Davis, and NBER, Jonathan E. Hughes, University of Colorado Boulder; and Aaron Smith, University of California, Davis, "Food vs. Fuel? Impacts of Petroleum Shipments on Agricultural Prices"

    Charles Mason, University of Wyoming, "Analyzing the Risk of Transporting Crude Oil by Rail"

    Shaun McRae, ITAM (Mexico City), "Crude Oil Price Differentials and Pipeline Infrastructure"

    Evan M. Herrnstadt, Harvard University, and Richard Sweeney, Boston College, "What Lies Beneath: Pipeline Awareness and Aversion"

    Karen Clay, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER; Akshaya Jha, Carnegie Mellon University; Nicholas Muller, Middlebury College and NBER; and Randall Walsh, University of Pittsburgh and NBER, "The Social Cost from Moving Crude Oil by Pipelines and Railroads: Evidence from the Bakken"

    Erich Muehlegger, University of California, Davis, and NBER, and Richard Sweeney, Boston College, "Competition and Pass-Through of Input Cost Shocks: Evidence from the U.S. Fracking Boom"

    Nida Çakir Melek, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and Michael Plante and Mine K. Yücel, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, "A Macroeconomic Analysis of Lifting the U.S. Crude Export Ban"

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/ENERs17/summary.html

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Economics of Energy Markets

An NBER conference, "Economics of Energy Markets," took place in Washington, D.C., on May 24. The meeting was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. It was organized by Research Associates Meredith Fowlie of the University of California, Berkeley and Christopher R. Knittel of MIT. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

    Joseph E. Aldy, Harvard University and NBER, "Boutique Fuel Markets and Security-Environment-Economic Tradeoffs"

    Christiane J.S. Baumeister, University of Notre Dame; Reinhard Ellwanger, Bank of Canada; and Lutz Kilian, University of Michigan, "Did the Renewable Fuel Standard Shift Market Expectations of the Price of Ethanol?"

    Gabriel E. Lade and Ivan J. Rudik, Iowa State University, "The Costs of Inefficient Regulation: Evidence from the Bakken"

    Sebastien Houde, University of Maryland, and Erica Myers, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, "Quantifying Inattention to Local Energy Prices: A Novel Approach and New Evidence for Nine Appliance Markets"

    Steven E. Sexton and Bryan Bollinger, Duke University, and Kenneth Gillingham, Yale University and NBER, "Household Demand for Solar PV and Price Discriminating Subsidies"

    Sharat Ganapati, Yale University; Joseph S. Shapiro, Yale University and NBER; and Reed Walker, University of California, Berkeley, and NBER, "The Incidence of Carbon Taxes in U.S. Manufacturing: Lessons from Energy Cost Pass-Through"

    Thomas P. Tangerås, Research Institute of Industrial Economics (Stockholm), and Frank A. Wolak, "Optimal Network Tariffs for Renewable Electricity Generation"

    Richard G. Newell, Resources for the Future and NBER, and Brian C. Prest, Duke University, "Informing SPR Policy through Oil Futures and Inventory Dynamics"

Summaries of these papers are at:
http://www.nber.org/confer/2017/ENERs17/summary1.html

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