Conferences: Winter, 2018

Economics of Digitization

A conference on "Economics of Digitization" took place at Stanford University on March 1–2. Research Associates Shane Greenstein and Josh Lerner of Harvard University and Scott Stern of MIT organized the meeting, which was sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

• Ananya Sen, MIT, and Catherine Tucker, MIT and NBER, "Information Shocks and Internet Silos: Evidence from Creationist-Friendly Curriculum" 
• Elizabeth Lyons, University of California, San Diego, and Laurina Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology, "Research as Leisure: Experimental Evidence on Voluntary Contributions to Science" 
• Daniel Bjorkegren, Brown University, and Darrell Grissen, "Behavior Revealed in Mobile Phone Usage Predicts Loan Repayment"
• Neil Thompson, MIT, and Douglas Hanley, University of Pittsburgh, "Science is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial" 
• Christian W. Peukert, Catholic University of Portugal, and Imke C. Reimers, Northeastern University, "Digital Disintermediation and the Market for Ideas" 
• Brett W. Hollenbeck, University of California, Los Angeles; Davide Proserpio, University of Southern California; and Sridhar Moorthy, University of Toronto, "Advertising Strategy in the Presence of Reviews: An Empirical Analysis" 
• Chiara Farronato, Harvard University and NBER, and Georgios Zervas, Boston University, "Consumer Reviews and Regulation: Evidence from NYC Restaurants" 
• Ariel Dora Stern, Harvard University, and Cirrus Foroughi, NBER Research Assistant, "Digital Innovation in a Regulated Industry: Evidence from Software-Driven Medical Devices" 
• Megan MacGarvie, Boston University and NBER; Jeremy Watson, Boston University; and John McKeon, Edgeworth Economics, "It was Fifty Years Ago Today: Recording Copyright Term and the Supply of Music"

Economics of Infrastructure

A conference on "Economics of Infrastructure" took place in Cambridge on March 2. Research Associates James M. Poterba of MIT and Edward L. Glaeser of Harvard University organized the meeting, which was supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

• Treb Allen Dartmouth College and NBER, and Costas Arkolakis, Yale University and NBER, "The Welfare Effects of Transportation Infrastructure Improvements" 
• Marquise McGraw, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, "Airline Hub Airports and Local Economic Outcomes" 
• Stephan Heblich, University of Bristol; Stephen J. Redding, Princeton University and NBER; and Daniel Sturm, London School of Economics, "The Making of the Modern Metropolis: Evidence from London" 
• David Albouy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NBER, and Arash Farahani, Independent Budget Office of the City of New York, "Valuing Public Goods More Generally: The Case of Infrastructure" 
• Joshua A. Lewis, University of Montreal, and Edson R. Severnini, Carnegie Mellon University, "Short- and Long-Run Effects of Rural Electrification: Short- and Long-Run Effects of the Roll-out of the U.S. Power Grid" 
• Matthew Turner, Brown University and NBER, and Marcel Peruffo, Brown University, "Health Effects of Piped Water on Child Mortality in Brazil" 
• Elaine Buckberg, Robert Mudge, and Hannah Sheffield, Brattle Group, "Recent Developments in the U.S. Public Private Partnership Market"
• Ryan D. Nunn, Brookings Institution, "Economic Issues Raised by Recent U.S. Proposals for Infrastructure Investment"
• Aleksandar Andonov, Erasmus University Rotterdam; Roman Kräussl, University of Luxembourg; and Joshua D. Rauh, Stanford University and NBER, "Infrastructure as an Investable Asset: An Investor Perspective"

Economics of Energy Distribution

A conference on "Economics of Energy Distribution" took place in Cambridge on March 7–8. Research Associates James B. Bushnell of the University of California, Davis, Ryan Kellogg of the University of Chicago, and Erin T. Mansur of Dartmouth College organized the meeting, which was sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

• Nicholas Ryan Yale University and NBER, and Anant Sudarshan, University of Chicago, "The Efficiency of Rationing: Agricultural Power Subsidies, Power Supply, and Groundwater Depletion in Rajasthan" 
• Frank A. Wolak, Stanford University and NBER, "Distribution Network Pricing and Regulation with Significant Distributed Solar Photovoltaic Generation Capacity" 
• Justin Kirkpatrick, Bobby Harris, and Steven E. Sexton, Duke University, and Nicholas Muller, Carnegie Mellon University and NBER, "Siting Solar PV Capacity to Maximize Environmental Benefits" 
• Imelda Wang, Matthias Fripp, and Michael J. Roberts, University of Hawaii, "Variable Pricing and the Social Cost of Renewable Energy" 
• Catherine Hausman, University of Michigan and NBER, and Lucija Muehlenbachs, University of Calgary, "Price Regulation and Environmental Externalities: Evidence from Methane Leaks" (NBER Working Paper No. 22261) 
• Severin Borenstein, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and James B. Bushnell, "Are Residential Electricity Prices Too High or Too Low? Or Both?"

The Challenges of Globalization in the Measurement of National Accounts

A meeting of the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, on the topic of "The Challenges of Globalization in the Measurement of National Accounts," took place in Washington on March 9–10. Nadim Ahmad and Peter van de Ven of the OECD, Brent Moulton of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Research Associate J. David Richardson of Syracuse University organized the meeting. The program was divided into five parts. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

Challenges of Globalization in National Accounts

• Moulton and van de Ven, "Addressing the Challenges of Globalization in National Accounts" 
• Silke Stapel-Weber, Paul Konijn, John Verrinder, and Henk Nijmeijer, Eurostat, "Meaningful Information for Domestic Economies in the Light of Globalization — Will Additional Macroeconomic Indicators and Different Presentations Shed Light?" 
• Maria Borga and Cecilia Caliandro, OECD, "Eliminating the Pass-Through: Towards FDI Statistics that Better Capture the Financial and Economic Linkages between Countries" 
• Fariha Kamal, Bureau of the Census, "A Portrait of U.S. Factoryless Goods Producers" 

Accounting for Global Production Processes 

• James J. Fetzer, Tina Highfill, Kassu Hossiso, Thomas Howells, Erich Strassner, and Jeffrey Young, Bureau of Economic Analysis, "Accounting for Firm Heterogeneity within U.S. Industries: Extended Sup-ply-Use Tables and Trade in Value Added using Enterprise and Establishment Level Data" 
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• Gabriela Saborio-Muñoz and Rigoberto Torres-Mora, Central Bank of Costa Rica, "Costa Rica: Integrating Foreign Direct Investment Data and Extended Supply-and-Use Tables into the National Accounts" 
• Bart Los and Marcel Timmer, University of Groningen, "Measuring Bilateral Exports of Value Added: A Unified Framework" 
• Bernhard Michel, Caroline Hambÿe, and Bart Hertveldt, Belgian Federal Planning Bureau, "The Role of Ex-porters and Domestic Producers in GVCs: Evidence for Belgium Based on Extended National Supply-and-Use Tables Integrated into a Global Multiregional Input-Output Table" 
• Nadim Ahmad, "Accounting for Globalization: Frameworks for Integrated International Economic Accounts" 

Impact of Transfer Pricing and Tax Avoidance 

• Mark Vancauteren, Hasselt University, and Michael Polder and Marcel van den Berg, Statistics Netherlands, "The Relationship Between Tax Payments and MNE's Patenting Activities and Implications for Real Economic Activity: Evidence from the Netherlands"
• Derrick Jenniges, Raymond Mataloni Jr., Sarah Stutzman, and Yiran Xin, Bureau of Economic Analysis, "Strategic Movement of Intellectual Property within Multinational Enterprises" 
• Jennifer Bruner and Dylan Rassier, Bureau of Economic Analysis; and Kim J. Ruhl, Pennsylvania State University, "Multinational Profit Shifting and Measures throughout Economic Accounts" 

Accounting for the Impact of Globalization in Europe 

• John D. FitzGerald, Trinity College Dublin, "National Accounts for a Global Economy: The Case of Ireland"
• Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, University of Maryland and NBER; Bent Sorensen, University of Houston; Carolina Villegas-Sanchez, ESADE Business School; and Vadym Volosovych, Erasmus University Rotterdam, "Who Owns Europe's Firms? Foreign Investment in Europe and Implications for Risk Sharing" 

Globalization and Innovation/Productivity 

• Mark de Haan and Joseph Haynes, Statistics Netherlands, "R&D Capitalization: Where Did We Go Wrong?" 
• Fernando Galindo-Rueda and Daniel Ker, OECD, and Francisco Moris and John Jankowski, National Science Foundation, "Capturing International R&D Trade and Financing Flows: What Do Available Sources Reveal about the Structure of Knowledge-Based Global Production?" 

Firms, Networks, and Trade

A conference on "Firms, Networks, and Trade" took place in Cambridge on March 15. Research Associates Laura Alfaro and Pol Antràs, both of Harvard University, and International Trade and Investment Program Director Stephen J. Redding of Princeton University organized the meeting. These researchers' papers were presented and discussed:

• Alonso Alfaro-Urena, Central Bank of Costa Rica, and Isabela Manelici and Jose P. Vasquez, University of California, Berkeley, "The Productivity Effects of Joining Multinational Supply Chains: Evidence from Firm-to-Firm Linkages" 
• Johannes Boehm, Sciences Po, Paris, and Ezra Oberfield, Princeton University and NBER, "Misallocation in the Market for Inputs: Enforcement and the Organization of Production" 
• Yimei Zou, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, "Endogenous Production Networks and Gains from Trade" 
• Ernest Liu, Princeton University, "Industrial Policies in Production Networks" 
• Ayumu Ken Kikkawa, University of Chicago; Glenn Magerman, Université Libre de Bruxelles; and Emmanuel Dhyne, National Bank of Belgium, "Imperfect Competition and the Transmission of Shocks: The Network Matters" 
• Jonathan Eaton, Pennsylvania State University and NBER; Samuel S. Kortum, Yale University and NBER; and Francis Kramarz, CREST-INSEE, Paris, "Firm-to-Firm Trade: Imports, Exports, and the Labor Market"