Conferences: Summer, 2013

Economics of Digitization

The NBER held a conference on the "Economics of Digitization" in Utah on June 6-7, 2013. The organizers were Shane Greenstein of Northwestern University and NBER, Avi Goldfarb of the University of Toronto, and Catherine Tucker of MIT and NBER. The following papers were discussed:

• Ajay Agrawal and Nicola Lacetera, University of Toronto and NBER; John Horton, oDesk Research ; and Elizabeth Lyons, University of Toronto, "Digitization and the Contract Labor Market: A Research Agenda"
• Michael Baye, Babur De Los Santos, and Matthijs Wildenbeest, Indiana University, "Searching for Physical and Digital Media: The Evolution of Platforms for Finding Books"
• Catherine Mann, Brandeis University, "Information Lost (Apologies to Milton)"
• Randall Lewis and David Reiley, Google, Inc., and Justin Rao, Microsoft Research, "Measuring the Effects of Advertising: The Digital Frontier"
• Joshua Gans, University of Toronto and NBER, and Hanna Halaburda, Harvard University, "Some Economics of Pure Digital Currencies"
• Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro, University of Chicago and NBER, "Ideology and the Demand for News Online"
• Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT and NBER, and Lynn Wu, University of Pennsylvania, "The Future of Prediction: How Google Searches Foreshadow Housing Prices and Sales"
• Hal Varian, Google, Inc., and the University of California at Berkeley, "Bayesian Variable Selection for Nowcasting Economic Time Series"
• Joel Waldfogel, University of Minnesota and NBER, "And the Bands Played On: Digital Disintermediation and the Quality of New Recorded Music"
• Megan MacGarvie, Boston University and NBER, and Petra Moser, Stanford University and NBER, "Copyright and the Profitability of Authorship - Evidence from Book Contracts in the Romantic Period"
• Tatiana Komarova, London School of Economics; Denis Nekipelov, University of California at Berkeley; and Evgeny Yakovlev, New Economic School, "Estimation of Treatment Effects from Combined Data: Identification versus Data Security"
• Brett Danaher, Wellesley College, and Michael Smith and Rahul Telang, Carnegie Mellon University, "Pro Copyright Enforcement in a Digital Age"
• Timothy Simcoe, Boston University and NBER, "The Endogenous Modularity of the Internet"
• Scott Wallsten, Technology Policy Institute, "What Are We Not Doing When We're Online, And How Much Is That Worth?"
• Susan Athey, Stanford University and NBER, and Scott Stern, MIT and NBER, "The Nature & Incidence of Software Piracy: Evidence from Windows"

Twenty-Fourth Annual EASE Conference

The NBER, the Australian National University, the China Center for Economic Research, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Korea Development Institute, the National University of Singapore, and the Tokyo Center for Economic Research jointly sponsored the NBER's 24th Annual East Asian Seminar on Economics. The conference, which was hosted by Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance, took place on June 21-2, 2013 in Wellington, New Zealand. Takatoshi Ito, University of Tokyo and NBER, and Andrew K. Rose, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, organized the conference, which focused on "Crises in the Open Economy." These papers were discussed:

• Kristin Forbes, MIT and NBER; Marcel Fratzscher, DIW Berlin and Humboldt University Berlin; and Roland Straub, European Central Bank, "Capital Controls and Prudential Measures: What Are They Good For?"
• Yuming Fu, Wenlan Qian, and Bernard Yeung, National University of Singapore, "Transaction Tax and Housing Market Speculators"
• Yothin Jinjarak, University of London; Ilan Noy, Victoria University of Wellington; and Huanhuan Zheng, Chinese University of Hong Kong, "Capital Controls in Brazil – Stemming a Tide with a Signal?"
• Dongchul Cho, Korea Development Institute, and Changyong Rhee, Asian Development Bank, "Effects of Quantitative Easing on Asia: Capital Flows and Financial Markets"
• Pengfei Wang and Zhiwei Xu, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, and Jianjun Miao, Boston University, "A Bayesian DSGE Model of Stock Market Bubbles and Business Cycles"
• Kathryn Dominguez, University of Michigan and NBER, "Exchange Rate Implications of Reserve Changes"
• Ju-Yin Tang, National Taiwan University, and Chung-Shu Wu, CIER, "Trade Credit, Bank Credit and Financial Crises: The Case of Taiwan"
• Kosuke Aoki, University of Tokyo, and Kalin Nikolov, European Central Bank, "Financial Disintermediation and Financial Fragility"
• Joshua Chan, Renee Fry-McKibbin, and Cody Yu Ling Hsiao, Australian National University, "A Regime Switching Skew-Normal Model for Measuring Financial Crisis and Contagion"
• Bo Zhao, Peking University, "Rational Housing Bubble"
• Maurice Obstfeld, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, "Finance at Center Stage: Some Lessons of the Euro Crisis"
• Tokuo Iwaisako, Hitotsubashi University, "Preparing for the Next Crisis in JGB Market"

Thirty-sixth International Seminar on Macroeconomics

The NBER's 36th International Seminar on Macroeconomics (ISOM) took place on June 21-2, 2013 at the Bank of Italy in Rome. NBER Research Associate Richard Clarida, Columbia University, and Lucrezia Reichlin, London Business School, organized the program. The following papers were discussed:

• Ugo Albertazzi, Banca d'Italia, and Margherita Bottero, Bank of Italy, "The Procyclicality of Foreign Bank Lending: Evidence from the Global Financial Crisis"
• David Miles and Jochen Schanz, Bank of England, "The Relevance or Otherwise of the Central Bank's Balance Sheet"
• Eric Swanson and John Williams, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Measuring the Effect of the Zero Lower Bound on Yields and Exchange Rates in the U.K. and Germany"
• Galina Hale, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Jean Imbs, Paris School of Economics; and Elliot Marks, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, "Bank Linkages, Diversification, and Contagion"
• Martin Evans, Georgetown University, "Hot Money and Dark Matter"
• Jiandong Ju, University of Oklahoma; Kang Shi, Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Shang-Jin Wei, Columbia University and NBER, "On the Connections between Intertemporal and Intra-temporal Trades"
• Alejandro Justiniano, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Giorgio Primiceri, Northwestern University and NBER; and Andrea Tambalotti, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, "The Effects of the Saving and Banking Glut on the U.S. Economy"
• David Backus and Thomas Cooley, New York University and NBER, and Espen Henriksen, University of California at Davis, "Demography and Low-Frequency Capital Flows"

Japanese Economy Meeting

The NBER together with the Center on Japanese Economy and Business, the Center for Advanced Research in Finance, and the Australia-Japan Research Centre, held a meeting on the Japanese economy in Tokyo on July 26-27, 2013. The organizers were: Jennifer Corbett, Australian National University; Charles Horioka, University of the Philippines and NBER; Takeo Hoshi, Stanford University and NBER; Kazuo Ueda, University of Tokyo; and David Weinstein, Columbia University and NBER. The following papers were discussed:

• Raymond Fisman, Columbia University and NBER, and Yasushi Hamao and Yongxiang Wang, University of Southern California, "The Impact of Interstate Tensions on Economic Exchange: Evidence from Shocks to Sino-Japanese Relations"
• Mathias Hoffmann, University of Zurich, and Toshihiro Okubo, Keio University, "By a Silken Thread: Regional Banking Integration and Pathways to Financial Development in Japan's Great Recession"
• Tsutomu Watanabe, University of Tokyo; Satoshi Imai, Statistics Bureau of Japan; and Chihiro Shimizu, Reitaku University, "How Fast Are Prices in Japan Falling?"
• John Tang, Australian National University, "Railroad Expansion and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Meiji Japan"
• Ayako Kondo, Yokohama National University, and Hitoshi Shigeoka, Simon Fraser University, "The Effectiveness of Government Intervention to Promote Elderly Employment: Evidence from Elderly Employment Stabilization Law"
• Jiro Yoshida, Pennsylvania State University, and Ayako Sugiura, Tokyo Association of Real Estate Appraisers, "Multidimensional Green Values: A Case of Green Condominiums with Longer Life Spans"
• Takao Kato, Colgate University; Daiji Kawaguchi, Hitotsubashi University; and Hideo Owan, University of Tokyo, "Dynamics of the Gender Gap in the Workplace: An Econometric Case Study of a Large Japanese Firm"
• Mary Amiti, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and David Weinstein, Columbia University and NBER, "How Much do Bank Shocks Affect Investment? Evidence from Matched Bank-Firm Loan Data" (NBER Working Paper 18890)

The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy Conference

An NBER conference on "The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy" organized by NBER Research Associates Adam Jaffe of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research and Ben Jones of Northwestern University, took place at Chicago on August 2-3, 2013. The following papers were discussed:

• Lee Branstetter, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER; Guangwei Li, Carnegie Mellon University; and Francisco Veloso, Carnegie Melon University, "The Globalization of R&D: China, India, and the Rise of International Co-invention"
• Maryann Feldman and Lauren Lanahan, University of North Carolina,"State Science Policy Experiments in the Laboratories of Democracy"
• Chris Forman, Georgia Institute of Technology; Avi Goldfarb, University of Toronto; and Shane Greenstein, Northwestern University and NBER, "Information Technology and the Distribution of Inventive Activity"
• Paula Stephan, Georgia State University and NBER, "The Endless Frontier: Reaping What Bush Sowed?"
• Hezekiah Agwara, Philip Auerswald, and Brian Higginbotham, George Mason University, "Algorithms and the Changing Frontier"
• Timothy Bresnahan, Stanford University and NBER, and Jason Davis and Pai-Ling Yin, MIT, "Economic Value Creation in Mobile Applications"
• Ajay Agrawal, University of Toronto and NBER; John McHale, National University of Ireland; and Alexander Oettl, Georgia Institute of Technology, "Collaboration, Stars, and the Changing Organization of Science: Evidence from Evolutionary Biology"
• Richard Freeman, Harvard University and NBER; Ina Ganguli, SITE, Stockholm School of Economics; and Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Stanford University, "Why and Wherefore of Increased Scientific Collaboration"
• Annamaria Conti, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Christopher Liu, University of Toronto, "The (Changing) Knowledge Production Function: Evidence from the MIT Department of Biology – 1970-2000"
• Ramana Nanda, Harvard University, and Kenneth Younge and Lee Fleming, University of California Berkeley, "Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Renewable Energy"
• Joshua Gans, University of Toronto and NBER, and Fiona Murray, MIT and NBER, "Credit History: The Changing Nature of Scientific Credit"

Conference on State and Local Health Plans for Active and Retired Public Employees

An NBER Conference on State and Local Health Plans for Active and Retired Public Employees took place in Wyoming on August 16-17, 2013. NBER Research Associates Robert Clark of North Carolina State University and Joseph Newhouse of Harvard University organized the meeting. The following papers were discussed:

• Robert Clark, North Carolina State University and NBER, and Olivia Mitchell, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, "How Does Retiree Health Insurance Influence Public Sector Employee Saving?"
• Sita Slavov, American Enterprise Institute, and John Shoven, Stanford University and NBER, "The Role of Retiree Health Insurance in the Early Retirement of Public Sector Employees"
• Robert Clark; Melinda Morrill, North Carolina State University; and David Vanderweide, North Carolina General Assembly, "The Effects of Retiree Health Insurance Plan Characteristics on Retirees’ Choice and Employers' Costs"
• Robert Novy-Marx, University of Rochester and NBER, and Joshua Rauh, Stanford University and NBER, "Funding Soft Liabilities"
• Paige Qin, Harvard University, and Michael Chernew, Harvard University and NBER, "Compensating Wage Differentials and the Impact of Health Insurance in the Public Sector on Wages and Salary"
• Byron Lutz and Louise Sheiner, Federal Reserve Board, "Examining the Whole Picture: Retiree Health Obligations and the Long-Term Budget Outlook for the State and Local Government Sector"
• Maria Fitzpatrick, Cornell University and NBER, "Retiree Health Insurance for Public School Employees: Does It Affect Retirement and Mobility?"
• Jeffrey Clemens, University of California at San Diego and NBER, and David Cutler, Harvard University and NBER, "Who Pays for Public Employee Health Costs?"