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Subject: AP attendance
Dear AP program members:
We had a great meeting on Friday. Thanks to all who contributed.
Towards the end of the meeting, I counted 18 people there who I don't know, none wearing name tags, and none on the invitation list. By age, they looked like PhD students, but it's hard to tell. I found this particularly irksome because of the large number of qualified and interesting people who asked me for invitations, and who I had to turn down. It's really not fair to them (and to me) if people crash the party.
I'd like to remind you that all NBER meetings are by invitation only. Please do not pass on an invitation or a suggestion either to faculty or graduate students to just show up.
If people would like to attend the asset pricing meetings, you or they should contact the organizers. The organizers will keep track of the total number coming and decide how many non-NBER people to invite. There generally is some extra space available, especially for local faculty and PhD students, and especially in the last week once we get a count of how many sign up for the meeting. But everyone has to have an invitation, a name card, and be on the list. (It also means that people who do come are treated nicely and given lunch rather than made to feel like second class citizens.)
This isn't just grumpiness on my part. If we had a completely open policy, we would have hundreds of people showing up, and the precious discussion character of our group would be lost. I too rankle on the impression of elitism that the nber member-only policy gives, but it is the only way to keep things from spinning out of control.
This applies to NBER members as well. Please sign up for the conferences you plan to attend, and attend the conferences you sign up for (or cancel)! We put Lita Kimble in quite a spot on Friday as there were way more people there than had signed up, and she had to scramble at the last minute to deal with lunch. The size of the room, the lunch, etc. are all geared to the number of people who are signed up. When multiple conferences are planned contiguously, as we have been doing for AP, Corporate, and Behavioral, please don't just show up for additional conferences; sign up with the NBER so they know how many people to plan for at each meeting. Conversely, I saw lots of people on the list who were not there at the meeting; please cancel if you can't make it so next time the NBER doesn't end up paying for a lot of needless space and wasted lunches.
As a minor issue, all of us would appreciate that as much as possible people attend the whole conference if they are coming at all. Comings and goings are pretty obvious, and some of our sessions were pretty empty while others were bursting at the seams. I already have authors nagging me for "good" presentation times when lots of people will be there. This isn't a major issue, but it is polite not to do too much cherry-picking.
Thanks and I look forward to seeing you all in Chicago on April 9
John Cochrane
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