Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics Application Procedure The Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics (SITE) is organizing a nine-session conference on economic theory and applications. There is a limited budget to help with travel costs. Though many of the presentations will be by invited speakers, we also welcome relevant submissions by anybody else with valuable contributions to the themes listed below. Junior economists (defined as first or second year full-time faculty at educational institutions in the United States or Canada ) will be given some priority, but there should be openings for more senior faculty as well. To apply, please send an email with your paper attached as a PDF file (along with the title of the session that you want to join) to: Rafal Klopotowski: rafal54@stanford.edu The deadline for applications is March 1, 2008. We expect to make selections by March 15th. For more information, please see http://site.stanford.edu
Segment 1: Social Interactions and Development June 19-20 Organized by Manuela Angelucci, University of Arizona; Ted Miguel and Adam Szeidl, University of California, Berkeley; Giacomo De Giorgi and Aprajit Mahajan, Stanford University. Networks play a central role in many economic and social interactions. It is often the case that transactions are bilateral and non-anonymous, in particular when the enforcement of formal contracts is problematic, i.e. lending and borrowing among villagers as a consumption smoothing device. The theoretical literature on networks formation, stability and proliferation is now vast and spans across several disciplines and capable of clearly identifying testable implications. On the application side, a number of scholars are collecting data explicitly identifying one s social network (i.e. extended family, classmates, co-workers, borrowers and lenders); while investigating how social networks affect behavior as well as attempting at testing the theoretical predictions on the structure and general characteristics of a social network. Segment 2: Market Design June 23-25 Organized by Parag Pathak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Alvin E. Roth, Harvard University; Michael Ostrovsky, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University and Muriel Niederle, Department of Economics, Stanford University. This workshop will focus on issues arising in market design, analyzed from theoretical, empirical, experimental, and practical perspectives. We invite submissions that study a variety of markets, including one- and two-sided matching markets, auctions, exchanges, markets for financial instruments, and other markets in which the details of design and microstructure may significantly impact economic outcomes. Segment 3: Econometric Analysis of High-Frequency Data and the Impact of Economic News June 27-28 Organized by Tim Bollerslev, Duke University and Peter Reinhard Hansen, Department of Economics, Stanford University. The workshop focuses on econometric theory and empirical issues related to high frequency data. We encourage submissions that address the link of high frequency based quantities to economic fundamentals and economic news. Topics such as estimation and forecasting with high frequency data are also welcome.
Segment 4: Insurance and Credit Markets July 7-9 Organized by Amy Finkelstein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Liran Einav and Jonathan Levin, Department of Economics, Stanford University. Insurance and credit markets are at the heart of various policy debates, ranging from Social Security reforms to the recent subprime crisis. Although not immediately obvious, these two markets share many common features. In particular, both these markets are contract markets, where the value of the transaction (claims or defaults) depends on its subsequent performance, leading to the twin informational problems of moral hazard and adverse selection. In recent years, empirical researchers have made significant progress in understanding the operation of such markets, detecting informational problems associated with them, and identifying moral hazard and adverse selection. These recent developments have occurred somewhat independently across fields. In the proposed session we hope to bring together researchers from various fields, such as industrial organization, public finance, and finance, to present their research, share ideas, and hopefully arbitrage the separate contributions made across fields. Segment 5: Theory-Based Micro-Economic Modeling July 10-12 Organized by Bernard Salanie, Columbia University and Frank Wolak, Stanford University. This session will bring together scholars undertaking theory-based empirical research in all fields of microeconomics - Labor Economics, Industrial Organization (IO), Public Finance, Environmental Economics and Urban Economics. Recent advances in econometric techniques and increases in computational power have many it possible to estimate econometrically extremely rich models of economic behavior. Although the economic questions addressed by these modeling exercises can be quite different, the econometric procedures and economic theory modeling frameworks employed share many common features. Consequently, the goal of this session is to bring together a diverse group of researchers from all fields of empirical microeconomics to share the latest methodological and empirical results obtained by applying these empirical methodologies with researchers in other fields in empirical microeconomics.
Segment 6: Federalism and Decentralized Governance July 21-22 Organized by Craig Volden, Ohio State University; Gerard Padro i Miquel, London School of Economics; John Hatfield, Graduate School of Business and Jonathan Rodden, Political Science Department, Stanford University. The purpose of this SITE workshop is to bring together theoretical and empirical researchers from economics and political science working on questions related to the political economy of federalism and decentralized governance. The workshop focuses on problems of policy and finance in multi-tiered systems around the world, ranging from U.S. local governments to the European Union. The papers will attempt to understand horizontal and vertical links between governments, focusing on both fiscal and political incentive structures. We hope to achieve a balance between theoretical and empirical work. Segment 7: Complex Data in Economics and Finance: Spatial Models, Social Networks and Factor Models July 24-26 Organized by Martin Burda, University of Toronto and Matthew Harding, Stanford University. The focus of the workshop is the econometric modeling of complex data dependencies as encountered in economics and finance. We will look at recent theoretical advances and empirical strategies in spatial models, social networks and factor models. Of particular interest are theoretical innovations in random matrix theory, computationally intensive methods and Bayesian approaches. We aim to bring together both theorists and practitioners to explore these frontiers of quantitative social science and strongly encourage interdisciplinary approaches. Segment 8: Theory and History July - 30 - August 1 Organized by Chris Meissner, University of California, Davis; Ran Abramitzky, Petra Moser and Gavin Wright, Stanford University. This segment will explore theoretical models of historical processes, as well as applications of such models to specific historical episodes. We would plan to invite a diverse group of participants, but potential subject areas would include: Technological change; Labor market institutions and behavior; systems of land tenure and agricultural development; and legal rules and practices in financial markets,
insurance, and commodity trade. Segment 9: Heterogeneity and Aggregation in Macro August 6-8 Organized by Russ Cooper, University of Texas; Nick Bloom, Doireann Fitzgerald, Pete Klenow and Kalina Manova, Stanford University. This segment will analyze the implications of heterogeneity for macroeconomics. Combining both a theoretical/methodological contribution with some empirical work we will focus on two areas in particular: firm level heterogeneity in terms of productivity, investment, hiring or other activities; and international trade heterogeneity across products, countries and firms.