NBER Reporter articles from March 1999

NBER Reporter archives from March 1999

Monetary economics.
March 22, 1999... Every consumer of the news appreciates the importance of monetary economics. Almost every day, the newspaper contains stories about inflation, deflation, or the next policy move by the Federal Reserve System. The NBER's Program on Monetary...

Understanding aggregate fluctuations: the importance of building from microeconomic evidence.
March 22, 1999... In recent research using longitudinal establishment-level data, a pervasive finding is that idiosyncratic factors dominate the distribution of growth rates of output, employment, investment, and productivity across establishments. Seemingly...

East Asian mysteries: past and present.
March 22, 1999... East Asia has long served as a Rorschach test for economists. The region's spectacular growth from the 1960s until the crash of 1997 spawned diverse interpretations that had as much to do with the preoccupations of the analyst as with the...

Economic analysis of law.
March 22, 1999... Economic analysis of law involves two elements: prediction of behavior in response to legal rules, assuming that actors are forward-looking and rational, and evaluation of outcomes in relation to well-articulated measures of social welfare....

The economics of GATT.(General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
March 22, 1999... The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is an important institution. Established in 1947 to encourage the reduction of trade barriers among its 23 member countries, GATT (and now its successor, the World Trade Organization - WTO) has...

Inter-American Seminar on Economics.(11th annual conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Dec 3, 1998-Dec 5, 1998, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
March 22, 1999... The NBER held its Eleventh Annual Inter-American Seminar on Economics in Rio de Janiero on December 3-5. Sebastian Edwards, NBER and University of California, Los Angeles, and Afonso Bevilaqua and Marcio Garcia, PUC-Rio, organized this year's...

Topics in empirical international economics: a festschrift in honor of Robert J. Lipsey.(National Bureau of Economic Research conference on Dec 3, 1998, to honor outstanding contributions of long-time member)
March 22, 1999... The NBER held a conference in New York on December 3-4 to honor Robert E. Lipsey, a Research Associate and head of the NBER's New York office. Lipsey joined the NBER as a Research Assistant in 1945 and has been continuously associated with the...

The administrative costs of individual accounts as part of social security reform.
March 22, 1999... An NBER project on the Administrative Costs of Social Security Reform is one part of a major NBER initiative that studies the U.S. Social Security system. The results of this project were presented at a conference in Cambridge on December 4....

Competition policy, deregulation, and reregulation.
March 22, 1999... The NBER, the Tokyo Center for Economic Research (TCER), and London's Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) jointly sponsored a conference on "Competition Policy, Deregulation, and Reregulation" in Tokyo on December 18-19. Takatoshi Ito,...

Patent systems and innovation.
March 22, 1999... As part of a major project on Industrial Technology and Productivity sponsored by the Sloan Foundation (described at www.nber.org/sloan), the NBER organized a research project on Patent Systems and Innovation, directed by Adam B. Jaffe, NBER...

Risk aspects of investment-based social security reform.
March 22, 1999... John Y. Campbell, Director of the NBER Program on Asset Pricing, and NBER President Martin S. Feldstein, both of Harvard University, organized a project on Risk Aspects of Investment-based Social Security Reform. The results of the project were...

Analytic models of currency crisis.
March 22, 1999... An NBER Conference on Analytic Models of Currency Crisis, organized by Research Associate Paul Krugman of MIT, took place in Cambridge on February 5. The following papers were discussed: Ricardo J. Caballero, NBER and MIT, "Emerging Market...

Behavioral macroeconomics.
March 22, 1999... The NBER held a meeting on Behavioral Macroeconomics in Cambridge on December 11. George Akerlof, University of California, Berkeley, and Robert J. Shiller, NBER and Yale University, organized this program: Lawrence Ausubel, University of...

Higher education.
March 22, 1999... The NBER's Research Group on Higher Education met in Cambridge on December 11. Charles T. Clotfelter, NBER and Duke University, Director of the Research Group, organized this program: William Johnson, University of Virginia, "Distributional...

Productivity.
March 22, 1999... Members and guests of the NBER's Program on Productivity met in Cambridge on December 11. Program Director Zvi Griliches and Research Associate Ariel Pakes, both of NBER and Harvard University, chose the following papers for discussion: ...

Economic fluctuations and growth.
March 22, 1999... Members of the NBER's Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth met on February 5 in Menlo Park, California. Robert King, NBER and the University of Virginia, and Edward C. Prescott, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, organized the...

Industrial organization.
March 22, 1999... The NBER's Program on Industrial Organization, directed by Nancy L. Rose of MIT, met at the NBER's California office on February 5-6. Glenn Ellison, NBER and MIT, organized the meeting at which the following papers were presented: Otto...

Japan project.
March 22, 1999... Members of the NBER's Japan Project, directed by Anil K Kashyap of NBER and the University of Chicago, met in Menlo Park, California on February 6. Their program was: Ramana Ramaswamy, International Monetary Fund, and Christel Rendu,...

Insurance Research Group.(National Bureau of Economic Research's committee conference on Feb 12, 1999)
March 22, 1999... The NBER's Insurance Research Group held a meeting in Cambridge on February 12-13. Kenneth A. Froot, NBER and Harvard University, Director of the Research Group, and Howard C. Kunreuther, NBER and University of Pennsylvania, organized the...

Development of the American economy.
March 22, 1999... The NBER's Program on the Development of the American Economy, directed by Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, met in Cambridge on March 6. The following papers were presented: Paul Rhode, NBER and University of North Carolina,...