NBER Reporter articles from December 1997

NBER Reporter archives from December 1997

Labor economics.
December 22, 1997... When the NBER instituted the Labor Studies Program some 20 years ago, labor economics was merely a tributary of economics. The main battleground of economic debate was macroeconomics, and most analyses focused on time-series data. Today, many of...

Monetary policy and inflation targeting.
December 22, 1997... In the 1990s, several countries shifted to a new monetary policy regime: an announced quantitative inflation target. The reason for this shift was the unsatisfactory performance under previous regimes. New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and Spain...

Institutions for fiscal stability.
December 22, 1997... The seventies and most of the eighties have been a period of fiscal profligacy in many countries around the world. Several OECD countries have accumulated debt/GDP ratios which are unprecedented, except for the aftermath of major wars. Low public...

The economics of cities.
December 22, 1997... The fundamental questions of urban economics are: Why do cities exist~ How does density - or agglomeration - affect people and firms? Why do some cities flourish and others decay? Why are social pathologies often more extreme in cities? These...

Tax Policy and the Economy. (National Burea of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... The NBER's 12th Annual Conference on "Tax Policy and the Economy," organized by James M. Poterba who directs the NBER's research on taxation, took place in Washington on November 4. As always, the speakers were academic economists and the...

Behavioral Approaches to Law and Economics. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... A group of economists and academic lawyers gathered in Cambridge on November 14 for the NBER's first "Conference on Behavioral Approaches to Law and Economics." The conference was organized by Robert Gertner and Richard H. Thaler, of NBER and the...

Not-for-profit hospitals are discussed. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... A group of NBER health economists and invited guests met on November 21 and 22 for a conference on not-for-profit hospitals. The conference was divided into five sessions, each of which included two papers; the sessions focused on managed care;...

Conference on market microstructure.(National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... The second formal meeting of the NBER's Market Microstructure Research Group, organized by NBER Research Associate Andrew Lo of MIT, took place in Cambridge on December 4. The discussion focused on the following papers: Michael J. Fleming and...

Competition and organization in technology intensive industries. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... One hundred economists from the United States, Canada, and Europe gathered in Cambridge on December 5 and 6 for the recent NBER-Universities Research Conference on technology-intensive industries. NBER Research Associate Shane Greenstein of...

Research meeting of economic fluctuations and growth program. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... Nearly 70 members and guests of the NBER's Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth met in Chicago on October 24 to discuss their recent research. Charles Jones, NBER and Stanford University, and James H. Stock, NBER and Harvard University,...

Public economics program meeting. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... Members of the NBER's program on Public Economics, directed by James M. Poterba of NBER and MIT, met in Cambridge on November 6 and 7. They discussed the following papers: Alberto F. Alesina, NBER and Harvard University; Rexa Baqir, University...

Program meeting on asset pricing. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... The NBER's Program on Asset Pricing met on November 7 in Philadelphia. A. Craig MacKinlay of the Wharton School organized the program, at which these papers were discussed: Torben Andersen, Northwestern University, and Timothy Bollerslev, NBEr...

Program meeting on children. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... On November 13, the NBER's Program on Children, directed by Janet Currie of NBER and University of California, Los Angeles, met in Cambridge. They discussed the following papers: Wei-Yin Hu, University of California, Los Angeles, "Welfare and...

Program meeting on labor studies. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... Fifty members and guests of the NBER's Program in Labor Studies met in Cambridge on November 14 to discuss some of their recent research. Program Director Richard B. Freeman and Research Associate Lawrence F. Katz, both of NBER and Harvard...

NBER monetary economists meet. (National Bureau of Economic Research)
December 22, 1997... Nearly 50 members and guests of the NBER's Program on Monetary Economics, directed by N. Gregory Mankiw of NBER and Harvard University, met in Cambridge on November 14 to discuss the following papers: Lawrence Christiano and Martin s....

Behavioral macroeconomics discussed in Cambridge. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... Members and guests of the NBER's Project on Behavioral Macroeconomics gathered in Cambridge on November 15 to discuss a number of recent papers. The meeting, organized by George A. Akerlof of University of California, Berkeley, and Robert J....

Corporate finance meeting. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... The NBER's Program on Corporate Finance, directed by Robert Vishny of the University of Chicago, met in Cambridge on November 21 to discuss the following papers: Rafael LaPorta, Harvard University: Florencio Lopez de Silanes and Andrei...

Productivity program meeting. (National Bureau of Economic Research conference)
December 22, 1997... NBER Research Associates John C. Haltiwanger, University of Maryland; Ariel Pakes, Yale University; and Mark J. Roberts, Pennsylvania State University, organized the most recent meeting of the NBER's Program on Productivity. The agenda for the...