NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, INC.

Public Economics Program Meeting

Alan Auerbach, Roger Gordon, and Antonio Rangel, Organizers

April 8-9, 2004

NBER

30 Alta Road

Stanford, CA

PROGRAM

THURSDAY, APRIL 8

Noon Lunch

1:00 PM ALEH TSYVINSKI, UC, Los Angeles and NBER

Optimal Taxation with Endogenous Insurance Markets

(joint with Mikhail Golosov)

Discussant: AMY FINKELSTEIN, Harvard University and NBER

2:15 PM BRIAN KNIGHT, Brown University and NBER

Are Policy Platforms Capitalized into Equity Prizes?

Evidence from the Bush/Gore 2000 Presidential Election

Discussant: JAMES POTERBA, MIT and NBER

3:30 PM Break

4:00 PM ERIC HANUSHEK, Stanford University and NBER

Borrowing Constraints, College Aid, and Intergenerational Mobility

(joint with Charles Ka, Yui Leung, and Kuzey Yilmaz)

Discussant: DENNIS EPPLE, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER

5:15 PM Adjourn

5:20 PM Shuttle van departs NBER for Stanford Park Hotel

6:00 PM Reception and Dinner

Stanford Park Hotel

100 El Camino Real

Menlo Park, CA

Dinner Discussion Topic: The Budgetary Situation in California

Speakers: ALAN AUERBACH, UC, Berkeley and NBER

FRIDAY, APRIL 9

7:45 AM Shuttle van departs Stanford Park Hotel for NBER

8:00 AM Continental Breakfast

8:30 AM MARK DUGGAN, University of Maryland and NBER

Do New Prescription Drugs Pay for Themselves?

The Case of Second-Generation Antipsychotics

Discussant: JOSHUA GRAFF ZIVIN, Columbia University and NBER

9:45 AM JOHN KARL SCHOLZ, University of Wisconsin and NBER

Are Americans Saving Optimally for Retirement?

(joint with Surachai Khitatrakun and Ananth Seshadri)

Discussant: EMMANUEL SAEZ, UC, Berkeley and NBER

11:00AM Break

11:30 AM AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, University of Chicago and NBER

Playing with Fire: Cigarettes, Taxes and Competition from the Internet

(joint with Joel Slemrod)

Discussant: HAL VARIAN, UC, Berkeley

12:45 PM Lunch

1:45 PM RICHARD CARSON, UC, San Diego

Probabilistic Influence and Supplemental Benefits:

A Field Test of the Two Key Assumptions Underlying Stated Preferences

(joint with Theodore Groves, John List, and Mark Machina)

Discussant: WILLIAM HARBAUGH, University of Oregon and NBER

3:00 PM LEORA FRIEDBERG, University of Virginia and NBER

Consumption and Changes in Home Energy Costs:

How Prevalent is the 'Heat or Eat' Decision?

(joint with Julie Cullen and Catherine Wolfram)

Discussant: RAJ CHETTY, UC, Berkeley and NBER

4:15 PM Break

4:45 PM HILARY HOYNES, UC, Davis and NBER

What Mean Impacts Miss: Distributional Effects of Welfare Reform Experiments

(joint with Marianne Bitler and Jonah Gelbach)

Discussant: THOMAS MACURDY, Stanford University and NBER

6:00 PM Adjourn

3/15/04