ITI Summer Institute 2020

From: Stephen J. Redding <reddings_at_Princeton.EDU>
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2019 14:31:24 +0000

Dear ITI members,

Over the last couple of years, several of you have suggested to me the idea of shortening the ITI summer institute from four days to three days. This suggestion was also made on the NBER survey about last year’s summer institute.

The main rationales given for this idea were as follows: (a) with the internet and Skype, it is less valuable than it used to be to have time together with coauthors after the sessions, (b) there are so many summer trade conferences now with Princeton, Yale, CEPR, Barcelona and others that there would be efficiency gains to concentrating papers in a smaller number of days, (c) many people have families and it is harder for them to be away from the family for a larger number of days. In part for related reasons, the IFM program already has shortened its schedule in recent years to a three-day format.

Based on this feedback, I consulted further with the ITI advisory council, who also supported the idea of experimenting with a three-day format.

Therefore, after discussing this feedback with Jim Poterba and in order to respond to it, we are going to experiment for the coming summer with a three-day format for the ITI summer institute. If ITI members decide that they prefer this three-day format to the previous four-day format, we will plan to continue with it in future years. In contrast, if ITI members decide that they prefer the previous four-day format after all, we will plan to revert after this year’s experiment back to the four-day format in future years. Therefore, it would be very helpful on next year's NBER survey to receive additional feedback about the three-day versus four-day format.

In moving from four to three days, the idea would be to have more papers on each day, so as to only slightly reduce the total number of papers for the ITI summer institute. The hope also would be that this more intense format would encourage a higher attendance rate of participants for each individual paper so as to maximize positive externalities for the group and the intellectual experience of the ITI summer institute.

Of course, more broadly, I would really value any additional feedback and suggestions for ways to improve and enhance the ITI program.

I look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming ITI winter meeting.

With Best Regards,

Steve
Received on Thu Nov 07 2019 - 09:56:16 EST