American economic association annual meeting Atlanta -- 2010

1. American economic association annual meetingAtlanta -- 2010

2. Annual Meeting Overview • Collection of meetings of 56 (mostly academic) economics organizations (coordinated/organized by Vanderbilt University) • American Economic Association • American Finance Association • Association for Evolutionary Economics • History of Economics Society • Labor and Employment Relations Association • Econometric Society • Industrial Organization Society

3. Annual Meeting Overview • Mark’s guess – 5,000+ attendees • Worldwide representation (EU, Asia, US) • Academia, government, consulting firms • Sessions organized by JEL classification (e.g., K1 – Law and Economics) • 3 days – Sunday, Monday, Tuesday 8AM-5PM • Sessions are 2-2½ hours long • As many as 40-60 simultaneous sessions • Usually 3 or 4 papers per session + discussants • Keynote addresses by Nobel Laureates, Federal Reserve Chairman • Lunches, Dinners, Receptions by organization • Job placement/matching service • Vendor Display – publishers, consultants, software

4. Annual Meeting Overview • Many (but not all) papers are available on-line • http://www.aeaweb.org/aea/conference/program/2010_AEA_meeting_papers.php • Web casts of major panels & addresses for AEA Members ($70-$98 to join) • Bernanke – Role of Monetary Policy in the Housing Crisis • Deficit Panel • Peter Diamond, Alan Auerbach, Thomas Sargent, Martin Feldstein, and Robert Barro • How should financial crisis change how we teach economics • David Colander, Benjamin Friedman, RaghuramRajan, Robert Shiller, and Alan Blinder • Paul Samuelson Memorial

5. Some of the Sunday Sessions(more than 100) • Bankruptcy and Foreclosure • Housing Demand • Executive Compensation • Institutional Approaches to Freedom • Legislative Bargaining • Monetary Policy & Credit Frictions • Empirical Studies of the Airline Industry • Public Policy from a Post Keynesian Perspective • The Economics of Crime • Comparative Political Economy • Adapting to Climate Change: Lessons from History • Employment and Health Care • Complexity in the History of Economic Thought • What Should be Done About the Banks? • Massachusetts Health Reform • Energy Use in Developing Countries

6. A Typical SessionBroadband Measurement & Impact • Leonard Waverman (U of Calgary), The Effect of Broadband Expansion on the Growth of Developing Countries • Every 1% increase in broadband penetration causes a 0.1% increase in productivity • William Lehr (MIT), Assessing Broadband: The Metrics Challenge • Mark Jamison (U of FL), What does it mean to be Connected? An International Analysis of Wireless, Wireline and Nomadic Broadband • Herbert Thompson (OH U), Broadband’s Impact on GDP: US versus other OECD Countries • Discussants: Robert Crandall (Brookings Inst), Scott Savage (U of CO), John Mayo ( Georgetown), Gregory Rosston (Stanford)

7. Another SessionEntrepreneurship in Medieval China, Early Muslim Societies and the Dutch Republic: Economies with Extraordinary Creativity that Did not Last • How did government incentives and institutions affect economic development and entrepreneurship? • William Baumol (Columbia) & Ying Lowrey (SBA) Incentive Structure in Medieval China • IshaqNadri (NYU) Early Muslim Science Entrepreneurship • Thijs Ten Raa, et al (U of Maastricht) Dutch Golden Age

8. Bernanke’s Address (60+ minutes)Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble • Was the federal funds rate set too low, and thus, created a bubble in housing prices and CDOs that burst when the Fed raised interest rates? • “too low” as measured by the Taylor Rule it = 2 + πt + a(πt – π*) + b(yt – y*) • it is the optimal federal funds interest rate • πt is the inflation rate in time t, π* is the target inflation rate • Ytis actual real output in time t, y* is the targeted output • a, b are positive numbers (usually assumed ≈ 0.5) • From John Taylor Monetary Policy Rules (1999)

9. One of Bernanke’s Charts

10. Another Bernanke Chart

11. Questions for Bernanke • Aren’t you setting us up for another boom-bust cycle? • We are professionals, we have everything under control, we have all the tools we need • What about inflation given the trillions of $$ injected into the economy? • We are professionals, we have everything under control, we have all the tools we need • What’s the big issue for public policy economics going forward? • Too big to fail – dealing with the distortion of incentives that the bail outs have created

12. Ideas Matter Options for Political Reform • Go Galt – this can’t be fixed; withdraw and hope to die before it gets too bad • Political Strategy – work the political system in hopes that elected leaders will reverse the trajectory • Cinderella Strategy – blog, write editorials, attend rallys hoping that someday, someone will get mad enough to do something (Tea Party) • Thurgood Marshall Strategy – use of targeted litigation to change laws (guns, gays, abortion) • Doug Bruce Strategy – use voter initiatives to wack at government • Academic Advocacy – change the ideas (or offer new ideas) that have shaped the role of government

13. Opportunities • AEA Annual Meeting will be in Denver in 2011 (Jan 7-9) • http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/index.htm • Organize a complete session or panel (requires assembling the papers to be presented) • Deadline April 15 • Propose an individual paper • Deadline April 1 • You may get rejected -- but if you do nothing, nothing is guaranteed to happen

14. Topic/Session Ideas • Too Big to Fail • Moral hazard and economic/social costs associated with bailing out big firms • What changes to institutions should be made to ensure that firms do not become too big to fail • Alternatives to bailing out big firms • Inflation: the Legacy of the Obama Administration • We’re All Keynesians Now • Effectiveness of federal stimulus spending • Activist monetary policy v. activist fiscal policy • Reforming the Fed • Hayek v Keynes Comparison of Recession Policies

15. More Topic Ideas • Policy Alternatives to Externalities with an Emphasis on Global Warming • Property Rights (Coase) Solutions to Externalities (Cap & Trade concepts) • Carbon Taxes, Deadweight losses and Tax Incidence • Survey of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies • How Chinese & Indian Development Affects CO2 Emissions • The Case for Doing Nothing • Health Care “Reform” – We’re All Socialists Now • Medical Care Incentives Under 3d Party Pays Systems (Insurance) • Health Care Spending and Quality of Care in Systems without Health Insurance

16. Supply w/tax Benefit Loss Borne by Consumers Price Demand Supply w/o tax tax Tax imposed on suppliers: 1. Reduces market volumes 2. Raises market prices 3. Imposes net economic losses on consumers and producers 4. Tax incidence is % of tax losses borne by consumers & producers Market Price w/tax Tax Revenues Market Price w/o tax Benefit Loss Borne by Producers Revenues Demand 0 Quantity Q2 Volume w/Tax Q1 Volume w/o Tax Deadweight Loss & Tax Incidence