Aging
Chinese Economy
Development of the American Economy
Economic Fluctuations and Growth
Environment and Energy Economics
Industrial Organization

International Finance and Macroeconomics
International Trade and Investment
Labor Studies
Law and Economics
Monetary Economics
Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

Members of the NBER's Industrial Organization Program met at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research on February 9–10. Faculty Research Fellow Myrto Kalouptsidi of Harvard University and Research Associate Jesse M. Shapiro of Brown University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

John Asker, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER; Allan Collard-Wexler, Duke University and NBER; and Jan De Loecker, Princeton University and NBER, "Market Power, Production (Mis)Allocation, and OPEC," (NBER Working Paper No. 23801)

Jan De Loecker and Jan Eeckhout, University College London, "The Rise of Market Power and the Macroeconomic Implications" (NBER Working Paper No. 23687)

Stefano DellaVigna, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and Matthew Gentzkow, Stanford University and NBER, "Uniform Pricing in U.S. Retail Chains" (NBER Working Paper No. 23996)

Germán Gutiérrez, New York University, and Thomas Philippon, New York University and NBER, "Declining Competition and Investment in the U.S." (NBER Working Paper No. 23583)

Xiang Hui, MIT; Maryam Saeedi, Carnegie Mellon University; Steven Tadelis, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; and Giancarlo Spagnolo, SITE-Stockholm School of Economics, "Certification, Reputation, and Entry: An Empirical Analysis"

Mitsuru Igami, Yale University, and Takuo Sugaya, Stanford University, "Measuring the Incentive to Collude: The Vitamin Cartels, 1990–99"

John C. Haltiwanger, University of Maryland and NBER; Robert Kulick, NERA Economic Consulting; and Chad Syverson, University of Chicago and NBER, "Misallocation Measures: The Distortion That Ate the Residual" (NBER Working Paper No. 24199)

Selin Akca, University of Zurich, and Anita Rao, University of Chicago, "Value of Search Aggregators"

Ying Li, Cornerstone Research; Joe Mazur, Purdue University; Yongjoon Park, University of Maryland; James W. Roberts, Duke University and NBER; Andrew Sweeting, University of Maryland and NBER; and Jun Zhang, University of Maryland, "Endogenous and Selective Service Choices After Airline Mergers" (NBER Working Paper No. 24214)

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/IOs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's Labor Studies Program met at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on February 15–16. Program Codirectors David Autor of MIT and Alexandre Mas of Princeton University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Richard Hornbeck, University of Chicago and NBER, and Enrico Moretti, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "Who Benefits from Productivity Growth? The Direct and Indirect Effects of Local TFP Shocks"

Simon Jäger, MIT and NBER; Benjamin Schoefer, University of California, Berkeley; and Josef Zweimüller, University of Zurich, "Marginal Jobs and Job Surplus: Evidence from Separations and Unemployment Insurance"

Cody Cook and Jonathan Hall, Uber Technologies; Rebecca Diamond, Stanford University and NBER; John A. List, University of Chicago and NBER; and Paul Oyer, Stanford University and NBER, "The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers"

José Azar, Charles River Associates; Ioana Marinescu, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; and Marshall I. Steinbaum, "Labor Market Concentration" (NBER Working Paper No. 24147)

David Card, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; Lowell Taylor, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER; and Ciprian Domnisoru, Carnegie Mellon University, "The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from the Golden Era of Upward Mobility"

Johannes F. Schmieder, Boston University and NBER; Till M. von Wachter, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER; and Jörg Heining, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, "The Costs of Job Displacement over the Business Cycle and Its Sources: Evidence from Germany"

Amanda Agan, Rutgers University, and Michael D. Makowsky, Clemson University, "The Minimum Wage, EITC, and Criminal Recidivism"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/LSs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's Law and Economics Program met in Cambridge on February 16. Program Director Christine Jolls of Yale University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Michael D. Frakes, Duke University and NBER, and Jonathan Gruber, MIT and NBER, "Defensive Medicine: Evidence from Military Immunity"

John Matsusaka, Oguzhan Ozbas, and Irene Yi, University of Southern California, "Can Shareholder Proposals Hurt Shareholders? Evidence from SEC No-Action Letter Decisions"

Lauren Cohen, Harvard University and NBER, and Umit Gurun, University of Texas at Dallas, "Buying the Verdict"

Roberta Romano, Yale University and NBER, "Does Agency Structure Affect Agency Decision Making? Implications of the CFPB's Design for Administrative Governance"

Steven Shavell, Harvard University and NBER, "The Rationale for Motions in the Design of Adjudication"

Edward H. Stiglitz, Cornell Law School, "Folk Theories and Constitutional Values"

Cäzilia Loibl, The Ohio State University; Lucia Reisch, Copenhagen Business School; Julius Rauber, Zeppelin University; and Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University, "Which Europeans Like Nudges? Approval and Controversy in Four European Countries"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/LEs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's Economic Fluctuations and Growth Program met in San Francisco on February 23. Research Associates Andrew Atkeson of the University of California, Los Angeles and Monika Piazzesi of Stanford University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Matteo Maggiori, Harvard University and NBER; Brent Neiman, University of Chicago and NBER; and Jesse Schreger, Columbia University and NBER, "International Currencies and Capital Allocation"

John Kennan, University of Wisconsin-Madison and NBER, "Spatial Variation in Higher Education Financing and the Supply of College Graduates" (NBER Working Paper No. 21065)

Katarína Borovičková, New York University, and Robert Shimer, University of Chicago and NBER, "High Wage Workers Work for High Wage Firms" (NBER Working Paper No. 24074)

Marcus Hagedorn, University of Oslo; Iourii Manovskii, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; and Kurt Mitman, Institute for International Economic Studies, "The Fiscal Multiplier"

Fatih Guvenen, University of Minnesota and NBER; Gueorgui Kambourov and Burhanettin Kuruscu, University of Toronto; Sergio Ocampo-Diaz, University of Minnesota; and Daphne Chen, Florida State University, "Use It Or Lose It: Efficiency Gains from Wealth Taxation"

Carlos Garriga, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Aaron Hedlund, University of Missouri, "Housing Finance, Boom-Bust Episodes, and Macroeconomic Fragility"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/EFGw18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's Monetary Economics Program met at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on March 1-2. Faculty Research Fellows Amir Kermani of the University of California, Berkeley and Jennifer La'O of Columbia University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Itamar Drechsler, Alexi Savov, and Philipp Schnabl, New York University and NBER, "Banking on Deposits: Maturity Transformation without Interest Rate Risk"

Julian Kozlowski, New York University, and Laura Veldkamp and Venky Venkateswaran, New York University and NBER, "The Tail that Keeps the Riskless Rate Low" (NBER Working Paper No. 24362)

Chen Lian, MIT, and Yueran Ma, Harvard University, "Anatomy of Corporate Borrowing Constraints"

Francisco J. Buera, Washington University in St. Louis, and Sudipto Karmakar, Banco de Portugal, "Real Effects of Financial Distress: The Role of Heterogeneity"

Anmol P. Bhandari, University of Minnesota; David Evans, University of Oregon; Mikhail Golosov, University of Chicago and NBER; and Thomas J. Sargent, New York University and NBER, "Inequality, Business Cycles, and Monetary-Fiscal Policy"

Emmanuel Farhi, Harvard University and NBER, and David Baqaee, London School of Economics, "Productivity and Misallocation in General Equilibrium" (NBER Working Paper No. 24007)

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/MEs18/summary.html

The NBER's Working Group on the Chinese Economy met in Cambridge on March 2–3. Faculty Research Fellow Nancy Qian of Northwestern University, working group Director Shang-Jin Wei of Columbia University, and Research Associate Daniel Xu of Duke University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Harald Hau, University of Geneva; Yi Huang, The Graduate Institute, Geneva; and Hongzhe Shan, Swiss Finance Institute, "TechFin at Ant Financial: Credit Market Completion and its Growth Effect"

Panle Jia Barwick, Cornell University and NBER; Dave Donaldson, MIT and NBER; Shanjun Li, Cornell University and NBER; and Yatang Lin, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, "The Welfare Effects of Passenger Transportation Infrastructure: Evidence from China"

Yuyu Chen, Peking University, and David Yufan Yang, Stanford University, "The Impact of Media Censorship: Evidence from a Field Experiment in China"

Hanwei Huang, London School of Economics, "Germs, Roads, and Trade: Theory and Evidence on the Value of Diversification in Global Sourcing"

Hui He, International Monetary Fund, and Lei Ning and Dongming Zhu, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, "The Impact of Rapid Aging and Pension Reform on Savings and the Labor Supply: The Case of China"

Koichiro Ito, University of Chicago and NBER, and Shuang Zhang, University of Colorado Boulder, "Do Consumers Distinguish Marginal Cost from Fixed Cost? Evidence from Heating Price Reform in China"

Shang-Jin Wei and Jianhuan Xu and Jungho Lee, Singapore Management University, "Trade Imbalance as a Source of Comparative Disadvantage: Why Does China Import So Much Waste?"

Guojun He, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Shaoda Wang, University of California, Berkeley; and Bing Zhang, Nanjing University, "Environmental Regulation and Firm Productivity in China: Estimates from a Regression Discontinuity Design"

Hanming Fang, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; Zhe Li and Nianhang Xu, Renmin University of China; and Hongjun Yan, DePaul University, "In the Shadows of Government: Political Turnovers and Firm Perk Expenses"

Pierre-André Chiappori, Columbia University; David Ong, Peking University; Yu Yang, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Junsen Zhang, Chinese University of Hong Kong, "Marrying Up: Trading Off Spousal Income and Spousal Height"

Loren Brandt and Gueorgui Kambourov, University of Toronto, and Kjetil Storesletten, University of Oslo, "Barriers to Entry and Regional Economic Growth in China"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/CEs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's Environment and Energy Economics Program met in Cambridge on March 8–9. Faculty Research Fellow Tatyana Deryugina of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Research Associate Matthew Kotchen of Yale University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Panle Jia Barwick and Shanjun Li, Cornell University and NBER, and Deyu Rao and Nahim B. Zahur, Cornell University, "Air Pollution, Health Spending, and Willingness to Pay for Clean Air in China"

Robin Burgess, London School of Economics; Jonathan M. Colmer, University of Virginia; and Michael Greenstone, University of Chicago and NBER, "The Economics of Marine Conservation"

Mark J. Borgschulte, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; David Molitor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NBER; and Eric Zou, Illinois University, "Smoked Out: The Effect of Wildfire Smoke on Labor Market Outcomes"

Nicholas Muller, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER, "Individual Discount Rates during the Great Depression: Evidence from Firewood Prices in Portland, Oregon"

Jeffrey G. Shrader, Jr., New York University, "Expectations and Adaptation to Environmental Risks"

Tatyana Deryugina and David Molitor, "Long-Run Health Dynamics in the Wake of Disaster: Evidence from Hurricane Katrina"

Leslie A. Martin and Samuel J. Thornton, University of Melbourne, "To Drive or Not to Drive? A Field Ex-periment in Road Pricing"

Paramita Sinha, Research Triangle Institute; Martha L. Caulkins, University of Maryland; and Maureen L. Cropper, University of Maryland and NBER, "Do Discrete Choice Approaches to Valuing Urban Amenities Yield Different Results than Hedonic Models?" (NBER Working Paper No. 24290)

Erich Muehlegger, University of California, Davis and NBER, and Richard Sweeney, Boston College, "Pass-through of Input Cost Shocks under Imperfect Competition: Evidence from the U.S. Fracking Boom" (NBER Working Paper No. 24025)

Bryan Bollinger, Duke University; Jesse Burkhardt, Colorado State University; and Kenneth Gillingham, Yale University and NBER, "Peer Effects in Water Conservation: Evidence from Consumer Migration"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/EEEs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's Aging Program met in Cambridge on March 8–9. Program Director Jonathan S. Skinner of Dartmouth College and Research Associate Kathleen M. McGarry of the University of California, Los Angeles organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Timothy Layton and Nicole Maestas, Harvard University and NBER; Daniel Prinz, Harvard University; and Boris Vabson, Stanford University, "The Consequences of (Partial) Privatization of Social Insurance for Individuals with Disabilities: Evidence from Medicaid"

Kevin S. Milligan, University of British Columbia and NBER, and Tammy Schirle, Wilfrid Laurier University, "Earnings, Mortality, and the Distribution of Longevity"

Liran Einav, Stanford University and NBER; Amy Finkelstein, MIT and NBER; Sendhil Mullainathan, Harvard University and NBER; and Ziad Obermeyer, Partners Healthcare, "Does High Healthcare Spending at End of Life Imply Waste? Predictive Modeling Suggests Not Necessarily"

Silvia H. Barcellos and Leandro Carvalho, University of Southern California, and Patrick Turley, Harvard University, "Distributional Effects of Education on Health"

John Beshears, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian, Harvard University and NBER; James J. Choi, Yale University and NBER; and Bill Skimmyhorn, United States Military Academy, "Borrowing to Save? The Impact of Automatic Enrollment on Debt"

David Cutler, Harvard University and NBER, "Is Aging a Luxury Good?"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/AGs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's International Finance and Macroeconomics Program met in Cambridge on March 8–9. Research Associates Emmanuel Farhi of Harvard University and Brent Neiman of the University of Chicago organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Liliana Varela, University of Houston, and Juliana Salomao, University of Minnesota, "Exchange Rate Exposure and Firm Dynamics"

Dmitriy Sergeyev and Luigi Iovino, Bocconi University, "Central Bank Balance Sheet Policies without Rational Expectations"

Anil Ari, International Monetary Fund, "Sovereign Risk and Bank Risk-Taking"

Andrei A. Levchenko, University of Michigan and NBER, and Nitya Pandalai-Nayar, University of Texas at Austin, "Technology and Non-Technology Shocks: Measurement and Implications for International Comovement"

Ryan Chahrour and Rosen Valchev, Boston College, "International Medium of Exchange: Privilege and Duty"

Emine Boz, International Monetary Fund; Gita Gopinath, Harvard University and NBER; and Mikkel Plagborg-Møller, Princeton University, "Global Trade and the Dollar" (NBER Working Paper No. 23988)

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/IFMs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's International Trade and Investment Program met in Cambridge on March 16–17. The meeting focused on "Trade and Geography." 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:

Enrico Berkes, Northwestern University, and Ruben Gaetani, University of Toronto, "Income Segregation and Rise of the Knowledge Economy"

Fabian Eckert, Yale University, and Michael Peters, Yale University and NBER, "Spatial Structural Change"

Matthew J. Delventhal, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Barcelona GSE, "The Globe as a Network: Geography and the Origins of the World Income Distribution"

Bernt Bratsberg and Oddbjorn Raaum, Frisch Centre, Oslo, and Andreas Moxnes and Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, University of Oslo, "Opening the Floodgates: Immigration and Structural Change"

Peter Egger and Nicole Loumeau, ETH Zurich, "The Economic Geography of Innovation"

Jeffrey C. Brinkman and Jeffrey Lin, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, "Freeway Revolts!"

Nelson Lind, Emory University, and Natalia Ramondo, University of California, San Diego and NBER, "Trade with Correlation" (NBER Working Paper No. 24380)

Richard K. Mansfield, University of Colorado at Boulder and NBER, "How Local Are U.S. Labor Markets? Using an Assignment Model to Forecast the Geographic Incidence of Local Labor Demand Shocks"

Shushanik Hakobyan, International Monetary Fund, and John McLaren, University of Virginia and NBER, "Local-Labor-Market Effects of NAFTA: The Other Shoe Drops"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/TGs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program met in Cambridge on March 23. Program Codirectors Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Josh Lerner of Harvard University, Faculty Research Fellow Sabrina T. Howell of New York University, and Research Associate Serguey Braguinsky of the University of Maryland organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Eunhee Sohn, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Robert Seamans and Daniel Sands, New York University, "Technological Opportunity and the Locus of Innovation: Airmail, Aircraft, and Local Capabilities"

Ernest Liu, Princeton University, Atif R. Mian, Princeton University and NBER, and Amir Sufi, University of Chicago and NBER, "Low Interest Rate and Productivity Growth"

Stefano DellaVigna, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and Matthew Gentzkow, Stanford University and NBER, "Uniform Pricing in U.S. Retail Chains" (NBER Working Paper No. 23996)

Patrick M. Kline, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; Neviana Petkova, U.S. Department of the Treasury; Heidi L. Williams, MIT and NBER; and Owen M. Zidar, University of Chicago and NBER, "Who Profits from Patents? Rent-Sharing at Innovative Firms"

Barton Hamilton, Washington University in St. Louis; Andres Hincapie, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Robert Miller, Carnegie Mellon University; and Nicholas W. Papageorge, Johns Hopkins University, "Innovation and Diffusion of Medical Treatment"

Sarada, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Oana Tocoian, Claremont McKenna College, "Entrepreneurship and the American Dream: How Far Does the Upward Mobility Ladder Reach?"

Jeffrey L. Furman, Boston University and NBER, and Markus Nagler and Martin Watzinger, University of Munich, "Disclosure and Subsequent Innovation: Evidence from the Patent Depository Library Program"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/PRs18/summary.html

Members of the NBER's Development of the American Economy Program met in Cambridge on March 24. Program Codirectors Leah Platt Boustan of Princeton University and William J. Collins of Vanderbilt University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Samuel Bazzi and Mesay Melese Gebresilasse, Boston University, and Martin Fiszbein, Boston University and NBER, "Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of 'Rugged Individualism' in the United States"

Karen Clay, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER; Ethan J. Schmick, Washington & Jefferson College; and Werner Troesken, University of Pittsburgh and NBER, "The Rise and Fall of Pellagra in the American South" (NBER Working Paper No. 23730)

Vellore Arthi, University of Essex; Brian Beach, College of William and Mary and NBER; and Walker Hanlon, New York University and NBER, "Estimating the Recession-Mortality Relationship when Migration Matters" (NBER Working Paper No. 23507)

Taylor Jaworski, University of Colorado at Boulder and NBER, and Carl Kitchens, Florida State University and NBER, "The Interstate Highway System and the Development of the American Economy"

Gregori Galofré-Vilà, University of Oxford; Christopher M. Meissner, University of California, Davis and NBER; Martin McKee, London School of Hygiene; and David Stuckler, Bocconi University, "Austerity and the Rise of the Nazi Party" (NBER Working Paper No. 24106)

Robert A. Margo, Boston University and NBER, "The Integration of Economic History into Economics" (NBER Working Paper No. 23538)

Farley Grubb, University of Delaware and NBER, and Cory S. Cutsail, IMA Consulting, "Colonial North Carolina's Paper Money Regime, 1712–74: Value Decomposition and Performance"

Summaries of these papers are at: www.nber.org/confer/2018/DAEs18/summary.html