Conferences Fall 2020

Gender in the Economy

An NBER conference on Gender in the Economy took place online July 24–25. Research Associates Jessica Goldberg of the University of Maryland, Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, Seema Jayachandran of Northwestern University, Claudia Olivetti of Dartmouth College, and Tom Vogl of the University of California, San Diego organized the meeting, which was sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

Papers on Women and Household Finance Issues

• Francesco D’Acunto, Boston College; Ulrike Malmendier, University of California, Berkeley and NBER; and Michael Weber, University of Chicago and NBER, “Gender Roles and the Gender Expectations Gap” (NBER Working Paper 26837)
• Simone G. Schaner, University of Southern California and NBER; Erica M. Field, Duke University and NBER; Rohini Pande, Yale University and NBER; Natalia Rigol, Harvard University and NBER; and Charity M. Troyer Moore, Yale University, “On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women’s Financial Control Impacts Labor Supply and Gender Norms” (NBER Working Paper 26294)

Papers on Victimization, Vulnerability, and Violence against Women

• Eleonora Guarnieri, Ifo Institute Munich, and Ana Tur-Prats, University of California, Merced, “Cultural Distance and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence”
• Girija Borker, The World Bank, “Safety First: Perceived Risk of Street Harassment and Educational Choices of Women”
• Roee Levy and Martin Mattsson, Yale University, “The Effects of Social Movements: Evidence from #MeToo”

Papers on Women’s Well Being and Children’s Health

• Daniel Halim, Hillary C. Johnson, and Elizaveta Perova, The World Bank, “Preschool Availability and Female Labor Force Participation: Evidence from Indonesia”
• Sarah Miller, University of Michigan and NBER; Laura R. Wherry, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER; and Diana G. Foster, University of California, San Francisco, “The Economic Consequences of Being Denied an Abortion” (NBER Working Paper 26662)
• Wolfgang Keller, University of Colorado, Boulder and NBER, and Hâle Utar, Grinnell College, “Globalization, Gender, and the Family” (NBER Working Paper 25247)

Papers on Women and Education across the World

• Claudia Senik, University Paris IV Sorbonne, and Naomi Friedman-Sokuler, Bar-Ilan University, “From Pink-Collar to Lab Coat: Cultural Persistence and Diffusion of Socialist Gender Norms”
• Itzik Fadlon, University of California, San Diego and NBER, and Frederik P. Lyngse and Torben Heien Nielsen, University of Copenhagen, “Early Career, Life-Cycle Choices, and Gender”
• Josefa Aguirre, Pontifícia Universidad Católica; Juan Matta, New York University; and Ana María Montoya, Universidad de Chile, “Joining the Men’s Club: The Returns to Pursuing High-Earnings Male-Dominated Fields for Women”

Papers on Victimization, Gender, and COVID-19 that received study group support:

• Heidi Stöckl, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Gerry Mshana, National Institute for Medical Research, Tanzania, “The Effect of COVID-19 on Women, Livelihood, and Violence in Mwanza, Tanzania”
• Amalia R. Miller, University of Virginia, and Carmit Segal, University of Zurich, “Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Domestic Violence in US Cities”
• Sonia R. Bhalotra, University of Essex; Emilia Brito Rebolledo, Brown University; Damian Clarke, University of Chile; Pilar Larroulet, University of Maryland; and Francisco Pino, University of Chile, “COVID-19 and Domestic Violence — Evidence from Rolling Quarantines in Chile”
• Keith Finlay, US Census Bureau; Michael G. Mueller-Smith, University of Michigan; and Brittany Street, University of Missouri, “The Determinants and Aftermath of Victimization in US Households and the Implications of COVID-19”
• Erica M. Field, Duke University and NBER, and Ursula T. Aldana, Institute for Peruvian Studies, “The Impact of COVID-19 on Intimate Partner Violence in Urban Peru”
• Rebecca Thornton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NBER; Scott Cunningham, Baylor University; and Gregory DeAngelo, Anuar Assamidanov, and Yunie Le, Claremont Graduate University, “COVID-19, Shelter-in-Place, and Domestic Violence”
• Sarah J. Baird, George Washington University, and Manisha Shah, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER, “The Shadow Pandemic: COVID-19 and Violence against Adolescent Girls in LMICs”
• Bilge Erten and Silvia Prina, Northeastern University, and Pinar Keskin, Wellesley College, “COVID-19 Movement Restrictions and Domestic Violence: Evidence from the US”

Summaries of these papers, as well as a several additional papers that the organizers identified as important related studies, may be found at www.nber.org/conferences/si-2020-gender-economy

International Trade Policy and Institutions

An NBER conference on International Trade Policy and Institutions took place online September 11–12. Research Associates Stephen J. Redding of Princeton University and Robert W. Staiger of Dartmouth College organized the meeting, which was sponsored by the Smith Richardson Foundation. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Samuel S. Kortum, Yale University and NBER; David Weisbach, University of Chicago; and Michael Wang, Northwestern Medical School, “Optimal Unilateral Carbon Policy”
• George A. Alessandria, University of Rochester and NBER; Shafaat Y. Khan, The World Bank; and Armen Khederlarian, University of Rochester, “Taking Stock of Trade Policy Uncertainty: Evidence from China’s Pre-WTO Accession”
• Jiwon Choi, Princeton University; Ilyana Kuziemko, Princeton University and NBER; Ebonya L. Washington, Yale University and NBER; and Gavin Wright, Stanford University, “Local Employment and Political Effects of Trade Deals: Evidence from NAFTA”
• Beata Javorcik, Katherine A. Stapleton, and Ben Kett, University of Oxford; and Layla O’Kane, Burning Glass Technologies, “Unravelling Deep Integration: Local Labour Market Effects of the Brexit Vote”
• Brian McCaig, Wilfrid Laurier University; Nina Pavcnik, Dartmouth College and NBER; and Woan Foong Wong, University of Oregon, “Export Markets and Long-Run Industry Adjustment: State, Private, and Foreign Firms in Vietnam”
•  Alberto Cavallo and Gita Gopinath, Harvard University and NBER; Brent Neiman, University of Chicago and NBER; and Jenny Tang, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, “Tariff Passthrough at the Border and at the Store: Evidence from US Trade Policy”
• Pablo Fajgelbaum, Princeton University and NBER; Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Yale University and NBER; Patrick Kennedy, University of California, Berkeley; Amit Khandelwal, Columbia University and NBER; and Daria Taglioni, The World Bank, “Global Reallocations in the 2018–2019 Trade War”
• Kyle Handley, University of Michigan and NBER; Nuno Limão, University of Maryland and NBER; Rodney Ludema, Georgetown University; and Zhi Yu, Renmin University of China, “Firm Input Choice underTrade Policy Uncertainty”
• Ohyun Kwon, Constantinos Syropoulos, and Yoto V. Yotov, Drexel University, “Pain and Gain: The Short- and Long-Run Effects of Economic Sanctions on Growth”
• Ralph Ossa, University of Zurich; Robert W. Staiger, Dartmouth College and NBER; and Alan O. Sykes, Stanford University, “Disputes in International Investment and Trade” (NBER Working Paper 27012)
• Emily J. Blanchard, Dartmouth College; Chad P. Bown, Peterson Institute for International Economics; and Davin Chor, Dartmouth College and NBER, “Did Trump’s Trade War Impact the 2018 Election?” (NBER Working Paper 26434)

Summaries of these papers are at www.nber.org/conferences/international-trade-policy-and-institutions-conference-summer-2020

Employer Challenges in Financing and Managing Pension Plans

An NBER conference on Employer Challenges in Financing and Managing Pension Plans took place online September 17–18. Research Associates Robert L. Clark of North Carolina State University and James M. Poterba of MIT organized the meeting, which was sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Olivia S. Mitchell, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, “Building Better Retirement Systems in the Wake of the Global Pandemic”
• Robert L. Clark, “Recent Developments in Public Sector Pension Plans”
• Deborah J. Lucas, MIT and NBER, and Daniel Smith, MIT, “How Much Can Collective Defined Contribution Plans Improve Risk-Sharing?”
• Dhiren Patki, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, “Breaking the Implicit Contract: Using Pension Freezes to Study Lifetime Labor Supply”
• Sean Myers, Stanford University, “Public Employee Pensions and Municipal Insolvency”
• Maria D. Fitzpatrick, Cornell University and NBER, and Gopi Shah Goda, Stanford University and NBER, “The Prevalence of COLA Adjustments in Public Sector Retirement Plans”
• Laura Quinby and Gal Wettstein, Boston College, “Do Deferred Benefit Cuts for Current Employees Increase Separation?”
• Chuck Boyer, University of Chicago, “Public Pensions and State Government Borrowing Costs”

Summaries of these papers are at www.nber.org/conferences/employer-challenges-financing-and-managing-pension-plans-fall-2020

Tax Policy and the Economy

An NBER conference on Tax Policy and the Economy took place online September 24. Research Associate Robert A. Moffitt of Johns Hopkins University organized the meeting, which was sponsored by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Jeffrey Clemens, University of California, San Diego and NBER; Joshua D. Gottlieb, University of Chicago and NBER; and Jeffrey Hicks, University of British Columbia, “How Would Medicare for All Affect Health System Capacity? Evidence from Medicare for Some”
• Zhao Chen and Zhikuo Liu, Fudan University; Yuxuan He, Duke University; Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato and Daniel Xu, Duke University and NBER, “The Structure of Business Taxation in China”
• Youssef Benzarti, University of California, Santa Barbara and NBER, “Estimating the Costs of Filing Tax Returns and the Potential Savings from Policies Aimed at Reducing These Costs”
• Mark Duggan and Gopi Shah Goda, Stanford University and NBER, and Gina Li, Stanford University, “The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on the Near Elderly: Evidence on Health Insurance Coverage and Labor Market Outcomes”
• Benjamin Lockwood, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; Afras Sial, University of Pennsylvania; and Matthew C. Weinzierl, Harvard University and NBER, “Designing, not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation”
• Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Northwestern University and NBER, and Michael R. Strain, American Enterprise Institute, “Employment Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit: Taking the Long View”

Summaries of these papers are at www.nber.org/conferences/tax-policy-and-economy-2020

Economics of Artificial Intelligence

An NBER conference on the Economics of Artificial Intelligence took place online on September 24–25. Research Associates Ajay K. Agrawal, Joshua S. Gans, and Avi Goldfarb of the University of Toronto and Catherine Tucker of MIT organized the meeting, which was sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Creative Destruction Lab at the University of Toronto. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Martin Beraja, MIT and NBER; David Y. Yang, Harvard University and NBER; and Noam Yuchtman, London School of Economics and NBER, “Data-Intensive Innovation and the State: Evidence from AI Firms in China” (NBER Working Paper 27723)
• Stephanie Assad and Robert Clark, Queen’s University; Daniel Ershov, Toulouse School of Economics; and Lei Xu, Bank of Canada, “Algorithmic Pricing and Competition: Empirical Evidence from the German Retail Gasoline Market”
• Wei Jiang, Columbia University and NBER, and Sean Cao, Baozhong Yang, and Alan L. Zhang, Georgia State University, “How to Talk When a Machine Is Listening: Corporate Disclosure in the Age of AI”
• Kate Bundorf and Maria Polyakova, Stanford University and NBER, and Ming Tai-Seale, University of California, San Diego, “How Do Humans Interact with Algorithms? Experimental Evidence from Health Insurance” (NBER Working Paper 25976)
• Laura Blattner, Stanford University, and Scott T. Nelson, University of Chicago, “How Costly Is Noise? Data and Disparities in the US Mortgage Market”
• Anton Korinek, University of Virginia and NBER, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University and NBER, “Steering Technological Progress”
• Stephan T. Zheng, Alexander Trott, Sunil Srinivasa, Melvin Gruesbeck, and Richard Socher, Salesforce Research; Nikhil Naik, MIT; and David Parkes, Harvard University, “The AI Economist: Improving Equality and Productivity with AI-Driven Tax Policies”
• Simona Abis, Columbia University, and Laura Veldkamp, Columbia University and NBER, “The Changing Economics of Knowledge Production”
• Emma J. Pierson and Jure Leskovec, Stanford University; David M. Cutler, Harvard University and NBER; Sendhil Mullainathan, University of Chicago and NBER; and Ziad Obermeyer, University of California, Berkeley, “An Algorithmic Approach to Explaining Why the Underserved Feel More Pain”
• Dirk Bergemann and Tan Gan, Yale University, and Alessandro Bonatti, MIT, “The Economics of Social Data”
• Danielle Li, MIT and NBER; Lindsey R. Raymond, MIT; and Peter Bergman, Columbia University and NBER, “Hiring as Exploration” (NBER Working Paper 27736)
• Debraj Ray, New York University and NBER, and Dilip Mookherjee, Boston University and NBER, “Growth, Automation and the Long-Run Share of Labor”
• Katherine A. Stapleton, University of Oxford, and Michael Webb, Stanford University, “Automation, Trade and Multinational Activity: Micro Evidence from Spain”
• Ashesh Rambachan, Harvard University; Jon Kleinberg, Cornell University; Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago and NBER; and Sendhil Mullainathan, “An Economic Approach to Regulating Algorithms”
• Daron Acemoglu and David Autor, MIT and NBER; Pascual Restrepo, Boston University and NBER; and Jonathon Hazell, MIT, “AI and Jobs: Evidence from Online Vacancies”

Summaries of these papers are at www.nber.org/conferences/economics-artificial-intelligence-fall-2020