Conferences, Fall 2022

International Seminar on Macroeconomics

The International Seminar on Macroeconomics took place June 20–21 in Athens, Greece. Research Associate Kristin Forbes of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Research Associate (on leave) Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas of the University of California, Berkeley and the International Monetary Fund, and Ricardo Reis of the London School of Economics organized the meeting. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Luís Fonseca, European Central Bank, and Katerina Nikalexi and Elias Papaioannou, London Business School, “The Globalization of Corporate Control”
• Linda S. Goldberg, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and NBER, and Signe Krogstrup, Bank of Denmark, “International Capital Flow Pressures and Global Factors”
• Grace Weishi Gu, University of California, Santa Cruz, and Galina Hale, University of California, Santa Cruz and NBER, “Climate Risk and FDI”
• Marta A. Santamaría, University of Warwick; Jaume Ventura, CREI, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and NBER; and Uğur Yeşilbayraktar, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, “Exploring European Regional Trade”
• Olivier Jeanne, Johns Hopkins University and NBER, and Damiano Sandri, International Monetary Fund, “Global Financial Cycle and Liquidity Management” (NBER Working Paper 27901)
• Alberto Cavallo, Harvard University and NBER, and Oleksiy Kryvtsov, Bank of Canada, “What Can Stockouts Tell Us about Inflation? Evidence from Online Micro Data” (NBER Working Paper 29209)
• Zhen Huo, Yale University; Andrei A. Levchenko, University of Michigan and NBER; and Nitya Pandalai-Nayar, University of Texas at Austin and NBER, “Utilization-Adjusted TFP across Countries: Measurement and Implications for International Comovement” (NBER Working Paper 26803)
• George A. Alessandria, University of Rochester and NBER; Shafaat Y. Khan, The World Bank; Armen Khederlarian, University of Connecticut; Carter B. Mix, Federal Reserve Board; and Kim J. Ruhl, University of Wisconsin-Madison and NBER, “The Aggregate Effects of Global and Local Supply Chain Bottlenecks: 2020–2022”

Summaries of some of these papers are available at www.nber.org/conferences/international-seminar-macroeconomics-2022

Distributional Consequences of New Energy Technologies

A conference on Distributional Consequences of New Energy Technologies took place June 23–24 in Cambridge, MA and online. Research Associates Catherine Hausman of the University of Michigan and Arik Levinson of Georgetown University organized the meeting, which was supported by Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant #2020-14025. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Jackson Dorsey, Indiana University, and Derek C. Wolfson, University of California, Berkeley, “Income and Racial Disparities in Markets for New Energy Technologies”
• Andrew R. Waxman and Sheila Olmstead, University of Texas at Austin, “Measuring the Welfare and Distributional Effects of Co-benefits of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Technology”
• Dallas Burtraw, Maya Domeshek, Christoph Funke, Daniel L. Shawhan, and Steven Witkin, Resources for the Future, and Burçin Ünel and Ana Varela Varela, New York University, “Distributional Impacts of Carbon Capture Technology”
• Jonathan M. Colmer, University of Virginia, and John L. Voorheis, US Census Bureau, “The Distributional Consequences of the Clean Energy Transition”
• Josh Blonz and Erin E. Troland, Federal Reserve Board, and Brigitte Roth Tran, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, “The Canary in the Coal Decline: Appalachian Household Finance and the Transition from Fossil Fuels”
• Cuicui Chen, Chunyu Guo, and Daiqiang Zhang, State University of New York, Albany, “Distributional Consequences of Electrifying the Trucking Industry”
• Gautam Gowrisankaran, Columbia University and NBER; Ashley Langer, University of Arizona and NBER; and Konan Hara, University of Arizona, “Regulating Power Plant Emissions: Environmental Justice, Enforcement, and Regulator Priorities”
• Irene Jacqz, Iowa State University, and Sarah Johnston, University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Staggered Electric Vehicle Adoption, Air Pollution Disparities, and Subsidy Policy”

Summaries of some of these papers are available at www.nber.org/conferences/distributional-consequences-new-energy-technologies-spring-2022

COVID-19 and Health Outcomes

A conference on COVID-19 and Health Outcomes took place June 24 online. NBER affiliates Marcella Alsan of Harvard University, Maria Polyakova of Stanford University, and Kosali I. Simon of Indiana University organized the meeting, which was supported by the National Institute on Aging. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Brian McGarry, University of Rochester; Ashvin Gandhi, University of California, Los Angeles; and Michael L. Barnett, Harvard University, “Does SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance Testing Prevent COVID-19 Transmission? Evidence from the US Nursing Home Industry”
• Sherry A. Glied, New York University and NBER, and Renata Howland and Ingrid Ellen, New York University, “Demons of Density: Do Higher-Density Environments Put People at Greater Risk of Contagious Disease?”
• Joshua D. Gottlieb, University of Chicago and NBER, and Avi Zenilman, Yale University, “When Nurses Travel: Labor Supply Responses to Peak Demand for Nurses”
• Erkmen G. Aslim, Grand Valley State University; Wei Fu and Chia-Lun Liu, University of Pennsylvania; and Erdal Tekin, American University and NBER, “Vaccination Policy, Delayed Care, and Health Expenditures” (NBER Working Paper 30139)
• Christopher J. Ruhm, University of Virginia and NBER, “The Evolution of Excess Deaths in the United States during the First Two Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic”
• Kosali I. Simon; Sumedha Gupta and Coady Wing, Indiana University; and Kate Bundorf, Duke University and NBER, “Social Isolation and Delayed Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias Diagnosis during the COVID-19 Era”

Summaries of some of these papers are available at www.nber.org/conferences/covid-19-and-health-outcomes-spring-2022

Big Data and High-Performance Computing for Financial Economics

A conference on Big Data and High-Performance Computing for Financial Economics took place July 16 in Cambridge and online. Research Associates Toni Whited of the University of Michigan and Mao Ye of Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management organized the meeting, which was supported by the National Science Foundation. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Marco Di Maggio, Harvard University and NBER; Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara, Louisiana State University; and Don Carmicheal, Upstart, “Invisible Primes: Fintech Lending with Alternative Data” (NBER Working Paper 29840)
• Rui Da and Dacheng Xiu, University of Chicago, and Stefan Nagel, University of Chicago and NBER, “The Statistical Limit of Arbitrage”
• Ron Kaniel, University of Rochester; Zihan Lin and Markus Pelger, Stanford University; and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, Columbia University and NBER, “Machine-Learning the Skill of Mutual Fund Managers” (NBER Working Paper 29723)
• Ran Chang, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Zhi Da, University of Notre Dame, “The Dark Side of the Cloud”
• Cheng Luo, Farallon Capital Management; Enrichetta Ravina, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Marco C. Sammon, Harvard University; and Luis M. Viceira, Harvard University and NBER, “Retail Investors’ Contrarian Behavior around News, Attention, and the Momentum Effect”
• Bhagath Cheela and André DeHon, University of Pennsylvania; Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, University of Pennsylvania and NBER; and Alessandro Peri, University of Colorado Boulder, “Programming FPGAs for Economics: An Introduction to Electrical Engineering Economics” (NBER Working Paper 29936)
• Thomas Ernst, University of Maryland, and Chester S. Spatt, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER, “Payment for Order Flow and Asset Choice” (NBER Working Paper 29883)
• Utku A. Acikalin, TOBB University of Economics and Technology; Tolga Caskurlu, University of Amsterdam; Gerard Hoberg, University of Southern California; and Gordon M. Phillips, Dartmouth College and NBER, “Intellectual Property Protection Lost and Competition: An Examination Using Machine Learning”

Summaries of some of these papers are available at www.nber.org/conferences/big-data-and-high-performance-computing-financial-economics

Wage Dynamics in the 21st Century

A conference on Wage Dynamics in the 21st Century took place in Cambridge and online September 16–17. Research Associates Erik Hurst of the University of Chicago and Lisa B. Kahn of the University of Rochester organized the meeting, which was supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Eliza Forsythe, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, “The Effect of Minimum Wage Policies on the Wage and Occupational Structure of Establishments”
• Mark Bils, University of Rochester and NBER; Marianna Kudlyak, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; and Paulo C. Lins, University of Rochester, “The Quality-Adjusted Cyclical Price of Labor”
• Stephane Bonhomme, University of Chicago; Kerstin Holzheu, Sciences Po; Thibaut Lamadon and Magne Mogstad, University of Chicago and NBER; Elena Manresa, New York University; and Bradley Setzler, Pennsylvania State University and NBER, “How Much Should We Trust Estimates of Firm Effects and Worker Sorting?” (NBER Working Paper 27368)
• Elizabeth Weber Handwerker, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Outsourcing, Occupationally Homogeneous Employers, and Growing Wage Inequality in the United States”
• Daron Acemoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER, and Pascual Restrepo, Boston University and NBER, “Tasks, Automation, and the Rise in US Wage Inequality” (NBER Working Paper 28920)
• Isaac Sorkin, Stanford University and NBER, and Melanie Wallskog, Duke University, “The Slow Diffusion of Earnings Inequality”
• José María Barrero, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México; Nicholas Bloom, Stanford University and NBER; and Steven J. Davis, University of Chicago and NBER, “Long Social Distancing”
• Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson, University of Chicago and NBER, “Monopsony Power in Higher Education: A Tale of Two Tracks” (NBER Working Paper 26070)
• John C. Haltiwanger, University of Maryland and NBER; Henry R. Hyatt, US Census Bureau; and James Spletzer, US Census Bureau, retired, “Sources of Increasing Earnings Inequality: Reconciling Survey and Administrative Data”
• Sadhika Bagga, University of Texas at Austin, “Firm Market Power, Worker Mobility, and Wages in the US Labor Market”

Summaries of some of these papers are available at www.nber.org/conferences/wage-dynamics-21st-century-fall-2022

Tax Policy and the Economy

A conference on Tax Policy and the Economy met in Washington, DC, on September 22. Research Associate Robert A. Moffitt of Johns Hopkins University organized the meeting, which was supported by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Dr. Cecilia Rouse, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, delivered a luncheon address. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• David Altig, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Boston University and NBER; and Victor Yifan Ye, Boston University, “How Much in Social Security Benefits Are Americans Leaving on the Table?”
• Mark Duggan, Stanford University and NBER; Audrey Guo, Santa Clara University; and Andrew Johnston, University of California, Merced and NBER, “Unemployment Insurance Taxation and Labor Demand”
• Jonathan Meer, Texas A&M University and NBER, and Joshua Witter, Amazon, “Effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit for Childless Adults: A Regression Discontinuity Approach”
• Edward L. Glaeser, Harvard University and NBER; Caitlin S. Gorback, University of Texas at Austin; and James M. Poterba, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER, “The Distributional Burden of Fuel Taxes and Transportation User Fees”
• Katarzyna A. Bilicka, Utah State University and NBER, and Michael P. Devereux and Irem Guceri, University of Oxford, “Tax Avoidance Networks and the Push for a ‘Historic’ Global Tax Reform”

Summaries of some of these papers are available at www.nber.org/conferences/tax-policy-and-economy-2022

Economics of Artificial Intelligence

A conference on the Economics of Artificial Intelligence took place in Toronto September 22–23. Research Associates Ajay K. Agrawal, Joshua S. Gans, and Avi Goldfarb of the University of Toronto and Catherine Tucker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology organized the meeting, which was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. These researchers’ papers were presented and discussed:

• Ganesh Iyer, University of California, Berkeley, and Tony Ke, Chinese University of Hong Kong, “Competitive Algorithmic Targeting and Model Selection”
• Himabindu Lakkaraju, Stanford University, and Chiara Farronato, Harvard University and NBER, “When Algorithms Explain Themselves: AI Adoption and Accuracy of Experts’ Decisions”
• Daniel Rock, Prasanna Tambe, and Zhiwei Wang, University of Pennsylvania, “Technological Complements to AI Growth”
• Martino Banchio and Andrzej Skrzypacz, Stanford University, “Artificial Intelligence and Auction Design”
• Ashesh Rambachan, Harvard University, “Identifying Prediction Mistakes in Observational Data”
• Ron Yang, Stanford University, “(Don’t) Take Me Home: Home Bias and the Effect of Self-Driving Trucks on Interstate Trade”
• Lindsey R. Raymond and Danielle Li, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford University and NBER, “Augmented Intelligence: The Effects of AI on Productivity and Work Practices”
• Ariel Dora Stern, Harvard University, “AI and Health Regulation”
• David M. Cutler, Harvard University and NBER; and Nikhil Sahni, George Stein, and Rodney Zemmel, McKinsey & Company, “AI to Reduce Administrative Costs in Health Care”
• James J. Feigenbaum, Boston University and NBER, and Daniel P. Gross, Duke University and NBER, “Organizational Frictions and Increasing Returns to Automation: Lessons from AT&T in the Twentieth Century” (NBER Working Paper 29580)
• Tania Babina, Columbia University; Alex X. He, University of Maryland; Anastassia Fedyk, University of California, Berkeley; and James Hodson, AI for Good, “Artificial Intelligence, Firm Growth, and Product Innovation”
• Maria D. Fitzpatrick, Cornell University and NBER, and Katharine Sadowski and Christopher Wildeman, Cornell University, “Does Access to an Algorithmic Decision-Making Tool Change Child Protective Service Caseworkers’ Investigation Decisions?”
• Ziad Obermeyer, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and Sendhil Mullainathan, University of Chicago and NBER, “Health Data Platforms”
• David Dranove, Northwestern University, and Craig Garthwaite, Northwestern University and NBER, “Artificial Intelligence, the Evolution of the Health Care Value Chain, and the Future of the Physician”

Summaries of some of these papers are available at www.nber.org/conferences/economics-artificial-intelligence-conference-fall-2022