5th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences, August 19-23

I'll be travelling to Germany to meet with students from many universities around the world at the

5th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences

19-23 August 2014

Lindau Meeting of the Laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

The 5th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences will provide an open exchange of economic expertise and inspire cross-cultural and inter-generational encounters among economists from all over the world. The diverse methodological approaches to economics will be widely discussed between the Laureates and the young participants.

There will be approximately 450 young economists from more than 80 countries participating in the 5th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences.

Programme

The scientific programme of the 5th Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences will comprise lectures and panel discussions (accessible for all registered meeting participants and guests), as well as discussion sessions and master classes (both accessible only for participating Nobel Laureates and young scientists).

A detailed version of the programme including all lecture titles of the participating laureates with links to their abstracts is available in the Lindau Mediatheque. To get an overview of the meeting schedule you can also download the programme structure.

Here's the formal part of the program:

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20TH

08:30 - 09:00	Lecture	Lars Peter Hansen Uncertainty and Valuation
09:00 - 09:30	Lecture	Alvin E. Roth Repugnant Markets and Prohibited Transactions
09:30 - 10:00	Lecture	Edmund S. Phelps Bringing Dynamism, Homegrown Innovation and Human Flourishing into Economics
10:00 - 10:30	Coffee Break
10:30 - 11:00	Lecture	Christopher A. Sims Inflation, Fear of Inflation, and Public Debt
11:00 - 11:30	Lecture	Vernon L. Smith Rethinking Market Experiments in the Shadow of Recessions: The Good and the Sometimes Ugly; Propositions on Recessions
11:30 - 14:00	Lunch Break
14:00 - 15:00	Opening Ceremony
15:00 - 15:30	Break
16:00 - 17:30	Discussion	Discussions  Discussions with Laureates Hansen, Phelps, Roth, Sims, Smith
17:00 - 20:00	Break
20:00 - 23:00	International Get-Together

THURSDAY, AUGUST 21ST

07:00 - 09:00	Discussion	Science Breakfast Paths to Innovation: Restoring Grassroots Dynamism to Address Global Challenges; Hosted by Mars, Incorporated - Upon invitation only
09:00 - 09:30	Lecture	Joseph E. Stiglitz Inequality, Wealth, and Growth: Why Capitalism is Failing
09:30 - 10:00	Lecture	Eric S. Maskin Why Haven’t Global Markets Reduced Inequality in Developing Economies?
10:00 - 10:30	Lecture	Finn E. Kydland Economic Policy and the Growth of Nations
10:30 - 11:30	Coffee Break
11:30 - 12:00	Lecture	Robert J. Aumann Collectives as Individuals
12:00 - 12:30	Lecture	Reinhard Selten From Learning Direction Theory to Generalized Impulse Balance
12:30 - 13:00	Lecture	William F. Sharpe Economic Analysis of Retirement Income Strategies
13:00 - 15:00	Lunch Break
15:00 - 16:30	Discussion	Panel Discussion The Future of Econometrics: Structural Restrictions, Parametric Methods and Big Data; Panelists Hansen, McFadden, Sims
16:30 - 17:00	Break
17:00 - 18:30	Discussion	Master Classes Master Classes with Myerson and Hansen
17:00 - 18:30	Discussion	Discussions  Discussions with Laureates Aumann, Kydland, Maskin, Selten, Sharpe, Stiglitz
18:30 - 19:00	Break
19:00 - 20:00	Lecture	Mario Vargas Llosa A Panoramic View on the Situation and Perspectives in Latin America
20:00 - 23:00	Dinner and Free Evening

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22ND

07:00 - 09:00	Discussion	Science Breakfast Innovation from the Edge - How could we possibly solve the “Innovator’s Dilemma” through the Power of Diversity?; Hosted by SAP SE - Upon invitation only
07:00 - 09:00	Discussion	Science Breakfast Banking and Banking Regulation after the Financial Crisis; Hosted by UBS AG - Upon invitation only
09:00 - 09:30	Lecture	Robert C. Merton Measuring the Connectedness of the Financial System: Implications for Systemic Risk Measurement and Management
09:30 - 10:00	Lecture	Daniel L. McFadden The New Science of Pleasure
10:00 - 10:30	Lecture	Sir James A. Mirrlees Some Interesting Taxes and Subsidies
10:30 - 11:30	Coffee Break
11:30 - 12:00	Lecture	Roger B. Myerson Moral-Hazard Credit Cycles with Risk-Averse Agents
12:00 - 12:30	Lecture	Edward C. Prescott The Revolution in Aggregate Economics
12:30 - 13:00	Lecture	Peter A. Diamond Unemployment
13:00 - 15:00	Lunch Break
15:00 - 16:30	Discussion	Panel Discussion Strategic Behavior, Incentives, and Mechanism Design; Panelists Maskin, Mirrlees, Myerson
16:30 - 17:00	Break
17:00 - 18:30	Discussion	Discussions Discussions with Laureates Diamond, McFadden, Merton, Mirrlees, Myerson, Prescott
18:30 - 20:00	Break
20:00 - 23:00	Bavarian Evening supported by the Free State of Bavaria

SATURDAY, AUGUST 23RD

07:15 - 10:20	Boat Trip to Mainau Island supported by SAP SE
11:00 - 13:00	Discussion	Panel Discussion How Useful is Economics - How is Economics Useful? Panelists Diamond, Merton, Roth
13:00 - 15:15	Lunch Break
15:15 - 15:45	Farewell Ceremony
16:15 - 18:30	Boat Trip to Lindau supported by SAP SE

ASSOCIATED DATA

Meeting Programme (2014 Economic Sciences) Meeting Programme of the 5th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

PDF

4.51 MB

Here's a link to the 'Nobel Labs 360' set of photographic, clickable interviews (including mine) in which you can direct some of the action and fly around the room using your mouse...

Immigration of scientists

In http://nypost.com/2014/06/08/the-science-of-immigration/, the NY Post notes that, since 2000, "immigrants have been awarded 24 of the 68 Nobel Prizes won by Americans in chemistry, medicine and physics."

My colleague Petra Moser looks particularly at the wave of immigration of German Jews after the Nazis took power: German Jewish Émigrés and U.S. Invention

"Our research provides new evidence on this question by examining the impact on innovation of German Jewish scientists who fled from Nazi Germany to the United States after 1932. Historical accounts suggest that these émigrés revolutionized U.S. innovation. In physics, for example, émigrés such as Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller, John von Neumann, and Hans Bethe formed the core of the Manhattan project that developed the atomic bomb. In chemistry, émigrés such as Otto Meyerhof (Nobel Prize 1922), Otto Stern (Nobel Prize 1943), Otto Loewi (Nobel Prize 1936), Max Bergmann, Carl Neuberg, and Kasimir Fajans “soon effected hardly less than a revolution. … Their work … almost immediately propelled the United States to world leadership in the chemistry of life” (Sachar 1992, p. 749).

Alternative accounts, however, suggest that émigrés’ contributions may have been limited due to administrative hurdles and antisemitism. Jewish scientists met with a “Kafkaesque gridlock of seeking affidavits from relatives in America [and] visas from less-than-friendly United States consuls” (Sachar 1992, p. 495). Once they were in the United States, a rising wave of antisemitism made it difficult for these scientists to find employment; in “the hungry 1930s, antisemitism was a fact of life among American universities as in other sectors of the U.S. economy” (Sachar 1992, p. 498).

Our paper presents a systematic empirical analysis of how German Jewish émigrés affected U.S. innovation. Taking advantage of the fact that patents are a good measure of innovation in chemistry, because chemical innovations are exceptionally suitable to patent protection (e.g., Cohen, Nelson, and Walsh 2002; Moser 2012), we focus on changes in chemical inventions. By comparison, the contributions of émigré physicists (including those who worked on the Manhattan Project) are difficult to capture empirically because they produced knowledge that was often classified and rarely patented.
...
"In sum, our research shows that high-skilled German Jewish immigrants created large and persistent benefits for innovators in the United States. In interpreting these results it is important to keep in mind that the émigrés in our data were exceptionally qualified scientists comparable to present-day academic superstars. Our analysis indicates that policies, which encourage the immigration of such scientists, can be an effective mechanism to encourage innovation.

This Research Brief is based on Moser, Voena, and Waldinger (2013), available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w19962. All works cited are provided there."

Competition, Market Design, and Medicare Part D

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has a new report about Competition and the Cost of Medicare's Prescription Drug Program:

 "Medicare Part D was designed to foster competition between plan sponsors to constrain drug spending. In assessing the impact of competition, CBO found that a larger number of plan sponsors in a region was associated with lower bids, on average, for the group of plans analyzed. … However, between 2007 and 2010, the average total number of plan sponsors per region fell by 4 (from 22 to 18), because more sponsors exited the market or merged with other sponsors than entered the market; that decrease in competition is associated with higher bids and higher government spending. … As Part D is currently structured, two features of the program could be changed to encourage plan sponsors to submit lower bids for their plans. First, in the component of Part D that serves low-income beneficiaries, the government usually pays the full amount of a plan's bid up to a threshold, regardless of whether other plans bid lower. Second, low-income beneficiaries enrolled in plans whose bid rises above the threshold are automatically reassigned in equal proportions to plans with bids below the threshold (unless a beneficiary has actively signed up for a particular plan). Both of those features encourage plans to set their bids close to (though below) the threshold. … The rules of the program could be altered, however, in ways that would continue to protect low-income beneficiaries but would also lower bids and government spending. For example, the government could adopt a reassignment mechanism that preferentially assigned low-income beneficiaries to the plans with premiums furthest below the benchmark; that approach would provide a stronger incentive to plans to submit low bids and would reduce the government’s spending even if plans did not alter their bids."

The full report is here:
Competition and the Cost of Medicare’s Prescription Drug Program
http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/45552-PartD.pdf 

and an accompanying technical working paper on competition here:

Examining the Number of Competitors and the Cost of Medicare Part D
by Andrew Stocking, James Baumgardner, Melinda Buntin, and Anna Cook

New York Prosecutors Charge Payday Lenders With Usury

The New York Times has the story: New York Prosecutors Charge Payday Lenders With Usury

"A trail of money that began with triple-digit loans to troubled New Yorkers and wound through companies owned by a former used-car salesman in Tennessee led New York prosecutors on a yearlong hunt through the shadowy world of payday lending.

On Monday, that investigation culminated with state prosecutors in Manhattan bringing criminal charges against a dozen companies and their owner, Carey Vaughn Brown, accusing them of enabling payday loans that flouted the state’s limits on interest rates in loans to New Yorkers.

Such charges are rare. The case is a harbinger of others that may be brought to rein in payday lenders that offer quick cash, backed by borrowers’ paychecks, to people desperate for money, according to several people with knowledge of the investigations.

“The exploitative practices — including exorbitant interest rates and automatic payments from borrowers’ bank accounts, as charged in the indictment — are sadly typical of this industry as a whole,” Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, said on Monday.

...

"The indictment offers a detailed look at the mechanics of the multibillion-dollar payday loan industry, which offers short-term loans with interest rates that can soar beyond 500 percent. ...

The payday lending operation began when borrowers applied for loans on websites like MyCashNow.com. From there, borrowers’ information was passed to another company, owned by Mr. Brown, that originated the loans. The information then wound up with another company, owned by Mr. Brown, that collected payments from borrowers."

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Here are some previous posts on payday loans.

Good news about a dangerous disease (hepatitis), at a high price

The good news is that there's a cure. The bad news is that it isn't cheap. Here's the NY Times headline on what is proving to be a blockbuster drug:
$1,000 Hepatitis Pill Shows Why Fixing Health Costs Is So Hard--Critics Raise Concerns About Sovaldi

"A new drug for the liver disease hepatitis C is scaring people. Not because the drug is dangerous — it’s generally heralded as a genuine medical breakthrough — but because it costs $1,000 a pill and about $84,000 for a typical person’s total treatment."

The story raises a number of interesting points.  Here's one:

"Until now, doctors would mostly treat hepatitis C patients’ symptoms. Some drugs attacked the virus itself, but they did not work very well. And most had side effects, including fever, depression and anemia, that about half the patients were not healthy enough to tolerate.

Those drugs were also expensive — the most effective drug cocktail before Sovaldi cost about $70,000 — but because few patients chose them, the price tag did not cause a big reaction. Sovaldi is different. Patients want this drug, with its high success rate and smaller list of side effects. That means a big financial shock to the health care system all at once."

Surrogacy and surrogacy law in the Hague

The Hague Conference on Private International Law has produced a document on surrogacy:
PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW ISSUES SURROUNDING THE STATUS OF CHILDREN, INCLUDING ISSUES ARISING FROM INTERNATIONAL SURROGACY ARRANGEMENTS

There's a meeting on the subject this week:

International Forum on Intercountry Adoption & Global Surrogacy

11-13 August 2014

About the ForumAccommodation
Participants
Keynote Speakers
Registration
Contact

Livestream

The plenary sessions will be broadcast live via the ISS livestream facility

Twitter

Follow the discussions on Twitter using #icaforum2014

About

The International Forum on Intercountry Adoption & Global Surrogacy  intends to provide an opportunity for scholars and practitioners to come together to provide an evidence base for international adoption and surrogacy problems and/or best practices that might inform Hague Convention policymakers and HCIA Central Authorities. Crosscutting themes will thus reflect topics pertinent to the special commission.

More background information on the Forum

Participants

Forum participants will include scholars and activists working in the field of international adoption and surrogacy.

List of confirmed participants

Keynote Speakers

	Norma Cruz Human rights defender for mothers and their children abducted into international adoption Founder of the Survivors Foundation, Guatemala 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee Winner of US State Department's 2009 International Woman of Courage Award
	Hans van Loon Former Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (1996-2013) who initiated and laid the groundwork for the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption
	Deepa Venkatachalam Director of the Sama-Resource Group for Women and Health.  Specialist in the social, medical, ethical and economic implications of inter country adoption and surrogacy for women and for society as a whole.

Here's a skeptical article from Al Jazeera: Offshore babies: The murky world of transnational surrogacy

Stanley Reiter 1925-2014

Ricky Vohra brings the news: Stanley Reiter (1925-2014)

He was a pioneer of mechanism design, and an academic institution builder, at Northwestern, and at Purdue before that.