Conferences: Winter, 2009

Micro and Macroeconomic Effects of Financial Globalization

An NBER/Universities Research Conference on "Micro and Macroeconomic Effects of Financial Globalization" took place in Cambridge on December 5 and 6. The organizers were Ross Levine, NBER and Brown University, and Carlos Vegh, NBER and University of Maryland. These papers were discussed:

• Matteo Iacoviello, Boston College, and Raoul Minetti, Michigan State University, "Foreign Lenders in Emerging Economies"
• Thorsten Beck, Tilburg University, and Maria Soledad Martinez Peria, The World Bank, "Foreign Bank Participation and Outreach: Evidence from Mexico"
• Todd Gormley, Washington University, St. Louis, "Costly Information, Foreign Entry, and Credit Access"
• Geert Bekaert, NBER and Columbia University; Campbell R. Harvey, NBER and Duke University; Christian T. Lundblad, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and Stephan Siegel, University of Washington, "What Segments Equity Markets?"
• Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, NBER and University of Houston; Bent Sorensen, University of Houston; and Vadym Volosovych, Florida Atlantic University, "Deep Financial Integration and Volatility"
• Scott Davis, Vanderbilt University, "The Effects of Globalization on International Business Cycle Co-Movement: Is All Trade and Finance Created Equal?"
• Uluc Aysun, University of Connecticut, and Adam Honig, Amherst College, "Bankruptcy Costs, Liability Dollarization, and Vulnerability to Sudden Stops"
• Filippo Brutti, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, "Legal Enforcement, Public Supply of Liquidity, and Sovereign Risk"
• Laura Alfaro, NBER and Harvard Business School, and Andrew Charlton, London School of Economics, "Intra-Industry Foreign Direct Investment" (NBER Working Paper No. 13447)

Sticky Prices and Inflation Dynamics

The 22nd Annual NBER-TCER-CEPR Conference on "Sticky Prices and Inflation Dynamics" took place in Tokyo, Japan on December 17-18, 2008. The conference organizers were: Jordi Gali, the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and NBER; Takeo Hoshi, University of California, San Diego and NBER; Anil K Kashyap, University of Chicago and NBER; and Tsutomu Watanabe, Hitotsubashi University. These papers were discussed:

• Chihiro Shimizu, Reitaku University; Kiyohiko Nishimura, former Professor of Economics, University of Tokyo; and Tsutomu Watanabe, "Residential Rents and Price Rigidity: Micro Structure and Macro Consequences"
• Kenn Ariga, Kyoto University, and Ryo Kambayashi, Hitotsubashi University, "Employment and Wage Adjustments at Firms under Distress in Japan: An Analysis Based upon a Survey"
• Fabio Canova, ICREA-UPF, and Tobias Menz, University of Bern, "Does Money have a Role in Shaping Domestic Business Cycles? An International Investigation"
• Morten Ravn, European University Institute and CEPR; Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe and Martin Uribe, Columbia University and NBER; and Lenno Uuskula, European University Institute, "Deep Habits and the Dynamic Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks"
• Naohito Abe and Daiji Kawaguchi, Hitotsubashi University, "Incumbent's Price Response to New Entry: The Case of Japanese Supermarkets"
• Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Bank of Canada, and Virgiliu Midrigan, New York University and NBER, "Inventories and Real Rigidities in New Keynesian Business Cycle Models"
• Kevin Clinton, Consultant; Marianne Johnson, Bank of Canada; and Ondra Kamenik and Douglas Laxton, International Monetary Fund, "Deflation Risks Under Alternative Monetary Policy Rules" These papers will be published in the Journal of the Japanese and International Economies.

Tenth Annual Conference in India

January 10-12, 2009, the NBER, India's National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), and the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) sponsored a meeting that united NBER researchers with about thirty economists from Indian universities, research institutions, and government departments. The theme of this year's meeting, the tenth such gathering, was "Sustaining Growth in Troubled Times." NBER President James M. Poterba of MIT organized the conference jointly with Suman Bery of NCAER.

The NBER participants in this meeting were: NBER Board Chairman John Clarkeson; John Y. Campbell, Mihir A. Desai, and Martin S. Feldstein, NBER and Harvard University; Don Fullerton, NBER and University of Illinois; Roger H. Gordon and Michelle J. White, NBER and University of California, San Diego; Abhijit Banerjee, Simon Johnson, and James M. Poterba, NBER and MIT; Anne O. Krueger, NBER and Johns Hopkins University; and Emily Oster, Raghuram Rajan, and Jesse M. Shapiro, NBER and University of Chicago.

The participants focused their discussion on a number of issues that are related to the current global economic situation. Montek Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Indian Planning Committee, provided an overview of current economic developments and policy challenges in India. Clarkeson and Feldstein, along with Tarun Das of the Confederation of Indian Industry, participated in a panel discussion on the U.S. economy and the near-term economic outlook. Other core topics that were discussed during the two-day meeting included fiscal policy and monetary management, trade and tariff policy, and the role of social programs in providing social protection for low-income families in both India and the United States.

Economic Growth

NBER Faculty Research Fellows Matthias Doepke, University of California, Los Angeles, and Benjamin Jones, Northwestern University, organized a "Conference on Economic Growth," which took place at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on February 12. These papers were discussed:

• Michele Boldrin, Washington University, and David K. Levine, NBER and Washington University, "Quality Ladders, Competition, and Endogenous Growth"
• Diego Comin, NBER and Harvard Business School, and Bart Hobijn, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "An Exploration of Technology Diffusion" (NBER Working Paper No. 12314)
• Alexander Monge, Pennsylvania State University, "Foreign Firms, Domestic Entrepreneurial Skills, and Development"
• Alice Schoonbroodt, University of Southampton, and Michele Tertilt, NBER and Stanford University, "Who Owns Children and Does It Matter?"
• Francesco Caselli, NBER and London School of Economics, and Guy Michaels, London School of Economics, "Resource Abundance, Development, and Living Standards: Evidence from Oil Discoveries in Brazil"
• Hyeok Jeong, Vanderbilt University, and Yong Kim, University of Southern California, "Complementarity and Transition to Modern Economic Growth"