Subject: activities of NBER IFM program members
From: Jeffrey_Frankel@harvard.edu
Date: Sat Oct 04 2003 - 10:49:42 EDT
Dear IFM Program Members:
In September, I had my annual review of the program with Marty Feldstein.
I am sending this email to explain how this works.
We evaluate the participation of each member of the program, or more
precisely, each member for whom IFM is his or her primary affiliation.
(I.e., those of you for whom AP or ITI is your primary affiliation are
reviewed by the director of that program.) We focus on three issues, on
which the Bureau keeps tabs:
1) Attendance at Fall and Spring program meetings and Summer Institute.
You get additional credit for organizing a meeting.
2) Yellow jacket working papers
3) NSF grants, or any others, that are run through the Bureau. (Marty
frowns severely every time he sees that a member has run an NSF grant
somewhere else....and he does see it.)
Other contributions, such as participation in conferences, special
projects, or other Bureau activities are also noted.
I realize it may seem like meetings and working papers are a favor from the
bureau to us. But it also goes the other way. In particular, the Bureau
wants your working papers. Marty regularly expresses surprise that most
people don’t submit more. The yellow jacket working paper series is the
highest visibility series there is, and is more visible than almost all
journals. The NBER website experiences 4,000 downloads of full working
papers per day, and many more of abatracts. No refereeing, very short
lags; what more could one want? We are all self-censoring our
submissions, and that is good up to a point. But you should know that
most of us are erring on the side of sending too few (not quite everyone).
Of course, you do not have to commit to submit only to the NBER working
paper series. Often you will want also to submit to SSRN or your
department series in addition. My own practice is to space them out: I
give the NBER series my best shot, and I often put earlier or later
revisions in other working paper series. But I realize some people like to
do it all at once.
Submitting NSF grants through the NBER is very important. The IFM group
is one of the lowest-performing in the Bureau in this regard. The main
source of NBER’s money is apparently overhead from NSF grants. You can
now get up to $26,000 for one month. If you already receive two months
from other sources, you can still get up to $26,000 from an NSF grant for
the third month. Of course, you also get an RA, research budget, etc.
The NBER is well set up to help you get grants. All you need is the
project summary, and 15 pages cobbled together from your latest working
paper. People do it in less than an afternoon. The Bureau’s excellent
staff take care of the rest. The next deadline is January, so consider
submitting a proposal for a grant that would start in the summer.
Especially you young folks.
The NBER provides gentle carrots and sticks over the long run. (1)
Research Associates are sometimes awarded honoraria for high levels of
participation. (2) Faculty Research Fellows are only appointed for a
term; continuation is not automatic, and eventual promotion to RA is far
less so. (3) Also, RAs who do not participate in the Bureau for a long
time are eventually asked whether they’d like to allow their slot to go to
someone who would make more active use of it.
Feel free to ask questions. I look forward to seeing many of you at the
Fall program meeting on Friday.
Best regards,
JF
