Meetings: Summer, 2009

Insurance Project Workshop

The NBER's Working Group on Insurance, directed by Research Associates Kenneth Froot of the Harvard Business School and Howard Kunreuther of the University of Pennsylvania, met in Cambridge on June 10. These papers were discussed:

• Liran Einav, Stanford University and NBER; Amy Finkelstein, MIT and NBER; and Mark Cullen, Yale University, “Estimating Welfare in Insurance Markets Using Variation in Prices”
• Darius Lakdwalla and Neeraj Sood, RAND Corporation and NBER, “Health Insurance as a Two-Part Pricing Contract”
• Thomas Baker, University of Pennsylvania, and Peter Siegelman, University of Connecticut, “Enticing Low Risks into the Health Insurance Pool: An Idea from Insurance History and Behavioral Economics”
• David Moss, Harvard University and NBER, “An Ounce of Prevention: The Power of Public Risk Management in Stabilizing the Financial System”
• Erwann Michel Kerjan, University of Pennsylvania; Paul Raschky, University of Innsbruck; and Howard Kunreuther, “Corporate Demand for Insurance: An Empirical Analysis of the U.S. Market for Catastrophe and Non-Catastrophe Risks”
• Alex Boulatov, University of Houston, and Stephan Dieckmann, University of Pennsylvania, “Disaster Relief Funds: Policy Implications for Catastrophe Insurance”
• Paul Freeman, University of Denver, and Stuart Miller, AIR Worldwide, “The Evolution of Catastrophe Risk Management in Mexico”
• In addition to these presentations, a midday panel discussion, moderated by Froot, focused on Asset Allocation and other Financial Policies of Insurers and Reinsurers. The panelists were: John Gauthier, Allied World Assurance, and William Poutsiaka, Transatlantic Reinsurance.

Japan Project Meets

The NBER together with the Center on the Japanese Economy and Business, The Center for Advanced Research in Finance, the European Institute of Japanese Studies, and the Australia-Japan Research Centre held a project meeting on the Japanese economy in Tokyo on June 30 – July 1. The National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and European Institute of Japanese Studies co-sponsored the meeting. The organizers were: Jennifer Corbett, Australia-Japan Research Centre; Charles Horioka, NBER and Osaka University; Anil K Kashyap, NBER and the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago; and David Weinstein, NBER and Columbia University. The following papers were discussed:

• Rasmus Fatum, University of Alberta, “Official Japanese Intervention in the JPY/USD Exchange Rate Market: Is it Effective and Through Which Channel Does it Work?”
• Ashish Arora, Duke University; Lee G. Branstetter, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER, and Matej Drev, Carnegie Mellon University, “The Great Realignment: How the Changing Technology of Technological Change in Information Technology Affected the U.S. and Japanese IT Industries, 1983-1999”
• Tokuo Iwaisako, Ministry of Finance, and Keiko Okada, Hosei University, “Understanding the Decline in the Japanese Saving Rate in the New Millennium”
• Gil S. Bae, Korea University; Yasushi Hamao, University of Southern California; and Jun-Koo Kang, Nanyang Technological University, “Bank Monitoring Incentives and Borrower Earnings Management: Evidence from the Japanese Banking Crisis of 1993-2002”
• Sergey Chernenko and Robin Greenwood, Harvard University, and Fritz Foley, Harvard University and NBER, “Are Agency Costs Fully Priced? Evidence from Public Listings of Subsidiaries in Japan”
• Jenny Corbett; Kazunobu Hayakawa, Institute of Developing Economies; and Fukunari Kimura, Keio University, “Who’s Serving You? A Gravity Model Approach to Services Trade”
• Chih-nan Chen, Harvard University; Tsutomu Watanabe, Hitotsubashi University; and Tomoyoshi Yabu, Keio University, “A New Method for Identifying the Effects of Foreign Exchange Interventions”
• Takeo Hoshi, University of California, San Diego and NBER; Satoshi Koibuchi, Chiba University of Commerce; and Ulrike Schaede, University of California, San Diego, “Changes in Main Bank Rescues during the Lost Decade: An Analysis of Corporate Restructuring in Japan, 1981-2007”

Economic Fluctuations and Growth Research Meeting

The NBER's Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth met in Cambridge on July 11. NBER Research Associates Mark Bils, University of Rochester, and Julio J. Rotemberg, Harvard Business School, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

• Fatih Guvenen, University of Minnesota and NBER, and Anthony Smith, Yale University, “Inferring Labor Income Risk from Economic Choices: An Indirect Inference Approach”
• Robert Barro, Harvard University and NBER; Emi Nakamura and Jon Steinsson, Columbia University and NBER; and Jose Ursua, Harvard University, “Crises and Recoveries in an Empirical Model of Consumption Disasters”
• James Kahn, University of Pennsylvania, “What Drives Housing Prices?”
• Roland Benabou, Princeton University and NBER, “Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets”
• Olivier Blanchard and Guido Lorenzoni, MIT and NBER, and Jean-Paul L’Huillier, MIT, “News, Noise, and Fluctuations: An Empirical Exploration”
• Melissa Dell, MIT; Benjamin Jones, Northwestern University and NBER; and Benjamin Olken, MIT and NBER, “Climate Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century” (NBER Working Paper No. 14132)