Conferences: Spring 2010

Conference on Fiscal Federalism

Julie Berry Cullen and Roger Gordon, both of the University of California at San Diego and NBER, organized a "Conference on Fiscal Federalism" that took place in California on March 26-27, 2010. These papers were discussed:

• Katherine Baicker and Monica Singhal, Harvard University and NBER, and Jeffrey Clemens, Harvard University, "Fiscal Federalism in the United States"
• David N. Figlio, Northwestern University and NBER, and Deborah Fletcher, Miami University, "Suburbanization, Demographic Change and the Consequences for School Finance"
• Roberton C. Williams III, University of Texas at Austin and NBER, "Growing State-Federal Conflicts of Interest in Environmental Policy: The Role of Market-Based Regulation"
• Hilary W. Hoynes, University of California at Davis and NBER, and Erzo F.P. Luttmer, Harvard University and NBER, "Insurance Benefits from Progressive Taxes and Transfers"
• Therese J. McGuire, Northwestern University, and Nathan B. Anderson, University of Illinois at Chicago, "Do States Practice Benefit Taxation? School Finance Reform and the Distribution of State Taxes"
• Julie Berry Cullen and Roger Gordon, "Income Redistribution in a Federal System of Governments"
• Rajashri Chakrabarti, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Joydeep Roy, Economic Policy Institute, "Effect of Constraints on Tiebout Competition: Evidence from School Finance Reforms in the U.S."
• Patrick Bayer, Duke University and NBER, and Robert McMillan, University of Toronto and NBER, "Tiebout Sorting and Neighborhood Stratification"
• Robin Boadway, Queen’s University, and Jean-Francois Tremblay, University of Ottawa, Canada, "Reassessment of the Tiebout Model"

Twenty-fifth Annual Conference on Macroeconomics

The NBER's Twenty-fifth Annual Conference on Macroeconomics, organizer by Research Associates Daron Acemoglu of MIT and Michael Woodford of Columbia University, took place in Cambridge on April 9 and 10. These papers were discussed:

• Rong Qian, University of Maryland; Carmen Reinhart, University of Maryland and NBER; and Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University and NBER, "On Graduation from Default, Inflation and Banking Crises: Elusive or Illusion?"
• Gauti Eggertsson, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, "What Fiscal Policy is Effective at Zero Interest Rates"
• Adam Ashcraft, Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Nicolae Garleanu, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; and Lasse Heje Pedersen, New York University and NBER, "Two Monetary Tools: Interest Rates and Haircuts"
• Diego A. Comin, Harvard University and NBER, and Bart Hobijn, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Technology Diffusion and Postwar Growth"
• Gita Gopinath, Harvard University and NBER, and Oleg Itskhoki, Princeton University, "In Search of Real Rigidities"
• Valerie A. Ramey, University of California, San Diego and NBER, and Daniel Vine, Federal Reserve Board, "Oil, Automobiles, and the US Economy: How Much Have Things Really Changed?"

Innovation Policy and the Economy

The NBER's eleventh annual Conference on Innovation Policy and the Economy took place in Washington on April 20. The conference was organized by NBER Research Associates Joshua Lerner of Harvard University and Scott Stern of Northwestern University. The following papers were discussed:

• David M. Cutler, Harvard University and NBER, "Where are the Health Care Entrepreneurs? The Failure of Organizational Innovation in Health Care"
• Raymond Fisman, Columbia University and NBER, and Eric Werker, Harvard Business School, "Innovations in Governance"
• Joshua S. Gans, University of Melbourne, "When is Static Analysis a Sufficient Proxy for Dynamic Consequences? Reconsidering Antitrust and Innovation"
• Suzanne Scotchmer, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "Cap and Trade, Emissions Taxes, and Innovation"
• Benjamin F. Jones, Northwestern University and NBER, "As Science Evolves, How Can Science Policy?"

The Design and Implementation of U.S. Climate Policy

NBER Research Associates Don Fullerton of the University of Illinois and Catherine Wolfram of the University of California, Berkeley organized a conference on "The Design and Implementation of U.S. Climate Policy" which took place in Washington, DC on May 13-14, 2010. These papers and topics were discussed:

• Lawrence H. Goulder, Stanford University and NBER, and Robert Stavins, Harvard University and NBER, "Interactions of State and Federal Climate Change Policies"
• Frank A. Wolak, Stanford University and NBER, "Regulating a Global Carbon Market"
• Matthew E. Kahn, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, "Urban Policy Effects on Carbon Mitigation"
• Lucas W. Davis, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "Evaluating the Slow Adoption of Energy Efficient Investments: Are Renters Less Likely to Have Energy Efficient Appliances?"
• Matthew J. Kotchen, Yale University and NBER, "Climate Policy and Voluntary Initiatives: An Evaluation of the Connecticut Clean Energy Communities Program"
• Christopher R. Knittel, University of California, Davis and NBER, and Ryan Sandler, University of California, Davis, "Carbon Prices and Automobile Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Extensive and Intensive Margins"
• Kevin A. Hassett and Aparna Mathur, American Enterprise Institute, and Gilbert E. Metcalf, Tufts University and NBER, "Distributional Impacts in a Comprehensive Climate Policy Package"
• Arik Levinson, Georgetown University and NBER, "Interactions among Climate Policy Regulations"
• Hilary Sigman, Rutgers University and NBER, "Monitoring and Enforcement of Climate Policy"
• Meredith Fowlie, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "Updating the Allocation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Permits in a Federal Cap-and-Trade Program"
• Roberton C. Williams III, University of Maryland and NBER, "Setting the Initial Time-Profile of Climate Policy"
• Erin T. Mansur, Yale University and NBER, "Upstream versus Downstream Implementation of Climate Policy"
• Stephen P. Holland, University of North Carolina, Greensboro and NBER, "Spillovers from Climate Policy"
• Olivier Deschenes, University of California, Santa Barbara and NBER, "Climate Policy and Labor Markets"
• Charles D. Kolstad, University of California, Santa Barbara and NBER, "Price, Quantities and Innovation"
• Kala Krishna, Pennsylvania State University and NBER, "Limiting Emissions and Trade: Some Basic Ideas"
• James B. Bushnell, Iowa State University and NBER, "The Economics of Carbon Offsets"
• Severin Borenstein, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "Markets for Anthropogenic Carbon within the Larger Carbon Cycle"
• V. Kerry Smith, Arizona State University and NBER, "How Can Policy Encourage Climate Adaptation?"
• Wolfram Schlenker, Columbia University and NBER, "Agriculture and Forestry"

Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar

The NBER's Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar took place on June 14-16, 2010 in Varenna (Lake Como), Italy. Roger H. Gordon, NBER and University of California, San Diego and Roberto Perotti, IGIER (Bocconi University), organized this year's conference, which focused on fiscal policy. These papers were discussed:

• Karel Mertens, Cornell University, and Morten Ravn, University College London, "Empirical Evidence on the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated U.S. Tax Policy Shocks"
• Alan J. Auerbach and Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, "Measuring the Output Responses to Fiscal Policy"
• Eric M. Leeper, Alexander Richter, and Todd B. Walker, Indiana University, "Quantitative Effects of Fiscal Foresight"
• Jeff Clemens and Stephen Miran, Harvard University, "The Effects of State Budget Cuts on Employment and Income"
• Joshua D. Rauh, Northwestern University and NBER, and Robert Novy-Marx, University of Chicago, "Fiscal Imbalances and Borrowing Costs: Evidence from State Investment Losses"
• Marco Battaglini, Princeton University and NBER, and Stephen Coate, Cornell University and NBER, "Fiscal Policy over the Real Business Cycle: A Positive Theory"(NBER Working Paper No. 14047)
• Agustin S. Benetrix and Philip R. Lane, Trinity College Dublin, "International Differences in Fiscal Policy during the Global Crisis"
• Ethan Ilzetzki, London School of Economics, and Enrique G. Mendoza and Carlos A. Vegh, University of Maryland and NBER, "How Big (Small?) Are Fiscal Multipliers?"
• Mathias Dolls, University of Cologne; Clemens Fuest, Oxford University; and Andreas Peichl, University of Bonn, "Automatic Stabilizers and Economic Crisis: US vs. Europe"
• James Feyrer and Jay Shambaugh, Dartmouth College and NBER, "Global Savings and Global Investment: The Transmission of Identified Fiscal Shocks" (NBER Working Paper No. 15113)
• Carlo Favero and Francesco Giavazzi, IGIER, Bocconi University, "VAR-Based and Narrative Measures of the Tax Multiplier"
• Roberto Perotti, "The Effects of Tax Shocks: Negative and Large"

Market Institutions and Financial Market Risk

An NBER Conference on Market Institutions and Financial Market Risk took place in New York City on June 17-18, 2010. Conference organizers were: Mark Carey of the Federal Reserve Board, and NBER Research Associates Anil K Kashyap and Raghuram Rajan, University of Chicago, and René Stulz, Ohio State University. These papers were discussed: 

• Alberto Manconi and Massimo Massa, INSEAD, and Ayako Yasuda, University of California, Davis, "The Behavior of Intoxicated Investors: The Role of Institutional Investors in Propagating the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008"
• Gary B. Gorton and Andrew Metrick, Yale University and NBER, “Securitized Banking and the Run on Repo” (NBER Working Paper No. 15223)
• Monica Billio and Loriana Pelizzon, University of Venice; Mila Getmansky, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Andrew W. Lo, MIT and NBER, "Measuring Systemic Risk in the Finance and Insurance Sectors'
• Franklin Allen, University of Pennsylvania; Ana Babus, University of Cambridge; and Elena Carletti, European University Institute, "Financial Connections and Systemic Risk"
• Nicola Gennaioli, CREI; Andrei Shleifer, Harvard University and NBER; and Robert W. Vishny, University of Chicago and NBER, "Financial Innovation and Financial Fragility" (NBER Working Paper No. 16068)
• Ing-Haw Cheng, University of Michigan; and Harrison Hong and Jose A. Scheinkman, Princeton University and NBER, "Yesterday's Heroes: Compensation and Creative Risk-Taking"
• Andrew Ellul and Vijay Yerramilli, Indiana University, "Stronger Risk Controls, Lower Risk: Evidence from U.S. Bank Holding Companies"
• Kalina Manova, Stanford University and NBER, and Davin Chor, Harvard University, "Off the Cliff and Back: Credit Conditions and International Trade during the Global Financial Crisis"
• Edie Hotchkiss, Boston College; David C. Smith, University of Virginia; and Per Stromberg, Stockholm School of Economics and NBER, "Private Equity and the Resolution of Financial Distress"
• Mark Mitchell and Todd Pulvino, CNH Partners, "Arbitrage Crashes and the Speed of Capital"
• Richard Stanton and Nancy Wallace, University of California, Berkeley, "CMBS Subordination, Ratings Inflation, and the Crisis of 2007-2009"
• Antje Berndt and Burton Hollifield, Carnegie Mellon University; and Patrik Sandas, University of Virginia, "The Role of Mortgage Brokers in the Subprime Crisis"

33rd International Seminar on Macroeconomics

NBER's 33rd International Seminar on Macroeconomics (ISOM) took place on June 18 and 19, 2010. NBER Research Associates Richard H. Clarida of Columbia University and Francesco Giavazzi of Bocconi University organized this year's program, which was hosted by the Dutch National Bank. The following papers were discussed:
Morten O. Ravn, European University Institute, and Karel Mertens, Cornell University, “Technology-Hours Redux: Tax Changes and the Measurement of Technology Shocks”
S. Boragan Aruoba, University of Maryland; Francis X. Diebold, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; and M. Ayhan Kose and Marco Terrones, International Monetary Fund, “Globalization, the Business Cycle, and Real-Time Macroeconomic Monitoring"
Thomas Laubach, Goethe University Frankfurt, "Fiscal Policy and Interest Rates: The Role of Sovereign Default Risk"
Wouter J. den Haan and Matija Lozej, University of Amsterdam, "Pigou Cycles in Closed and Open Economies waith Matching Frictions"
Michael W. Klein, Tufts University and NBER, and Linda S. Goldberg, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and NBER, "Establishing Credibility: Evolving Perceptions of the European Central Bank” (NBER Working Paper No. 11792, revised in 2006)
Stijn Claessens, M. Ayhan Kose, and Marco Terrones, International Monetary Fund, "Financial Cycles: What? How? When?"
Christopher J. Erceg and Jesper Linde, Federal Reserve Board, "Asymmetric Shocks in a Currency Union with Monetary and Fiscal Handcuffs"
Travis Berge and Òscar Jordà, University of California, Davis, and Alan M. Taylor, University of California, Davis and NBER, "Currency Carry Trades"