AN NBER PUBLICATION
ISSUE: No. 2, June 2009
The Reporter
A free quarterly publication featuring program updates, several summaries of affiliates' research, and news about the NBER
Author(s):
The Global Financial Crisis: A Selective Review of Recent Research in the International Finance and Macroeconomics Program
[The following Program Report appeared in the 2009 Number 2 issue of the NBER Reporter.]
In recent months, many members of the NBER's International Finance and Macroeconomics (IFM) program have turned their attention to the financial crisis that erupted in the United States in 2007 and spread to the global economy in 2008 and 2009. Since my last...
Article
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On average, wealthy people live longer and have less illness and disease than poor people. This has been well documented across countries, within countries at a point in time, and over time as economic growth occurs. And, the positive correlation between income and health is not limited to the bottom end of the income distribution. Indeed, the gradient in health status - the phenomenon that relatively wealthier people have better health and longevity - is evident throughout...
Article
Author(s):
For a long time there has been an imbalance in what we know about housing markets - we understand much more about housing demand than housing supply. This has been driven in part by policy interests, although data availability also has played a role. Fortunately, this knowledge gap has begun to narrow in recent years, allowing for a much better understanding of housing markets in general. Given the importance of housing in the economy, and the recent dramatic swings in home...
Article
Author(s):
How much do individuals know?
Increasingly, individuals are in charge of securing their own financial well-being after retirement. With the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions, today's workers must decide both how much to save and how to allocate their retirement wealth. Financial markets have become more complex and individuals are faced with a proliferation of new investment products. Investment opportunities have expanded beyond national borders...
Article
Author(s):
Time devoted to work varies greatly among OECD countries. In Belgium, France, and Germany for example, total hours of market work relative to population are roughly 30 percent lower than in the United States, Japan, and Australia. The issue is not simply one of "European" versus "non-European" countries, as there are also large differences within Europe. Hours of work in Spain and Sweden are roughly midway between the two previously mentioned groups, and in Switzerland,...
News
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NBER Research Associate Emmanuel Saez received the American Economics Association's John Bates Clark Medal for 2010. This award, which was historically awarded every other year but will be awarded annually starting in 2010, is presented to the economist under the age of 40 who has made the most substantial contribution to economic thought and knowledge. The prize citation identifies Saez's work on optimal tax theory, behavioral responses to taxation, the distribution of...
Books
Article
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Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment
Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment, edited by Jeffrey R. Brown, Jeffrey B. Liebman, and David A. Wise...
Meetings and Conferences: Spring, 2009
Meetings
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ArticleNational Security The NBER's Working Group on the Economics of National Security, directed by NBER President-Emeritus Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, met in Cambridge on February 24. The following papers were discussed: Effie Benmelech, Harvard University and NBER; Claude Berrebi, RAND Corporation; and Esteban F. Klor, Hebrew University, Economic Conditions and the Quality of Suicide Terrorism Nayantara Hensel, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, ...
Conferences
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ArticleTwenty-fourth Annual Conference on Macroeconomics The NBER's Twenty-fourth Annual Conference on Macroeconomics, organizer by Research Associates Daron Acemoglu of MIT, Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Michael Woodford of Columbia University, took place in Cambridge on April 10 and 11. These papers were discussed: John Geanakoplos, Yale University, The Leverage Cycle Christopher Foote and Lorenz Goette, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Kristopher Gerardi...