Sunday, September 29, 2019

Krusell on Economics of Climate

In general I'm not a fan of podcasts -- it takes annoyingly longer to listen than to read -- but if you're interested in climate economics you must hear this Per Krusell gem. It's from 2017 but fresh as ever.  He also gave a mini-course at Penn back in 2017.  So sad I could not go. 

I also like Marty Weitzman's Climate Shock.  Similarly informed and serious.  Quirky and endearing writing style.  Makes a strong case for a low discount rate.


Machine Learning and Big Data

Nice looking meeting coming up this week, "Big Data and Machine Learning in Econometrics, Finance, and Statistics" at U Chicago's Stevanovich Center for Financial Mathematics.  Preliminary program here.


Sunday, September 22, 2019

Temperature Volatility

Temperature level is of course heavily studied, and trending upward alarmingly quickly. In a new paper, Glenn Rudebusch and I study temperature volatility, which has been much less heavily studied. We show that temperature volatility is pervasively trending downward, and that its "twin peaks" seasonal pattern is also evolving, both of which have implications for agriculture and much else. Our analysis is based on the daily temperature range, in precise parallel with the time-honored use of the daily log price range as a volatility (quadratic variation) estimator in financial markets.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Econometrics Meeting at Penn

Please consider submitting to this year's Greater New York Area (GNYA) econometrics meeting, hosted this year by Penn (third time, I think).  Always a fine conference.  GNYA is defined VERY broadly. Program and participant list from last year's meeting at Princeton here.  Call for papers for this year's Penn meeting immediately below.

Dear friends,

We are pleased to announce that the University of Pennsylvania will host the Greater New York Metropolitan Area Econometrics Colloquium on Saturday, December 7, 2018.  If you would like to present your work at the colloquium, please send your paper or extended abstract by Sunday, October 27, 2018.  We plan to have the program selected by Friday, November 8th, 2018.

Further information about the colloquium will be posted at


Please feel free to forward this call for papers to your colleagues. As usual, we will not include presentations by graduate students in this short event. Each presentation should last about 30 minutes. We plan to include 8-12 presentations in the program.

Continental breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be provided. We cannot cover travel or accommodations. There are three hotels on campus: The Study at University City (newest, 0.3 mile), Sheraton Philadelphia University City (1 block), Hilton Inn at Penn (1 block). About two miles from campus, there are also many options in center city Philadelphia.

Please send submissions to gnyec19@gmail.com.
Best,
Karun Adusumilli
Xu Cheng
Frank Diebold
Wayne Gao
Frank Schorfheide

Monday, September 9, 2019

Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy

The first volume from last May's NBER meeting is forthcoming; see https://www.nber.org/books/kotc-1  Marvelously, the meetings and volumes will be ongoing annually.  See below for the 2020 CFP.  Note that submissions from non-NBER researchers are welcome.


NBER Call for Papers / Proposals
2nd Annual NBER Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy Conference

 
Dear Researchers,
 
We are seeking papers or proposals for the second annual NBER conference/publication on Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy. We will accept six papers for presentation at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on May 21, 2020. The audience will include the professional staffs of government agencies, research institutions, and NGOs focused on energy and environmental policy. The contributed papers will then be published in an annual volume by the University of Chicago Press.
 
To view last year?s agenda and papers for the forthcoming volume, please click 
HERE and HERE.
 
Papers should be relevant to current policy debates and accessible to a professional audience, yet following standard NBER protocol, they should avoid making policy recommendations. While standalone projects are specifically encouraged, we also welcome spinoff projects where authors intend to later submit a more extensive or technical version to a journal, or may have already done so. While no paper should be a duplicate of another paper, alternate versions that put results into a more general, policy relevant context and summarize them in more accessible language are encouraged. This is a great opportunity to communicate research to the policy community.
 
Submissions should be either complete papers or 2-3 page abstracts outlining the intended contribution. Submissions are due by October 14, 2019, and can be uploaded at
 
http://www.nber.org/confsubmit/backend/cfp?id=EEPEs20
 
Submissions from researchers who are not affiliated with the NBER, and from researchers who are from groups that have been historically under-represented in the economics profession, are welcome. The authors of each paper will share an $8,000 honorarium.
 
Decisions about accepted papers will be made by mid-November. Complete drafts of papers will be due in early April 2019.
 
We look forward to hearing from you.
 
Matthew Kotchen
James Stock
Catherine Wolfram

"Economics of Climate Change" Conference

Between the earlier Milan Climate Econometrics meeting (here) and this upcoming November FRBSF meeting (program now available, below), there's a lot of new and stimulating work.  Really nice.


 The Economics of Climate Change
Federal Reserve Bank San Francisco
Janet Yellen Conference Center
November 8, 2019
AGENDA
8:00 a.m. Continental Breakfast
8:45 a.m. Introduction: Mary C. Daly, President, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
9:00 a.m. Session Chair: Glenn D. Rudebusch, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Labor Supply in a Warmer World: The Impact of Climate Change on the Global Workforce
Presenter: Solomon Hsiang, University of California, Berkeley
Discussant: David Card, University of California, Berkeley
Long-Term Macroeconomic Effects of Climate Change: A Cross-Country Analysis
Presenter: M. Hashem Pesaran, University of Southern California
Discussant: Francis X. Diebold, University of Pennsylvania
10:15 a.m. Break
10:45 a.m. Session Chair: Galina B. Hale, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Integrated Assessment in a Multi-region World with Multiple Energy Sources and Endogenous Technical Change
Presenter: Conny Olovsson, Central Bank of Sweden (Sveriges Riksbank)
Discussant: Larry Karp, University of California, Berkeley
On the Implications of Pollution for the Measurement of Output, Volatility, and the Natural Interest Rate
Presenter: Nicholas Z. Muller, Carnegie Mellon University
Discussant: Karen Fisher-Vanden, Penn State University
Noon Lunch – Market Street Dining Room, 4th Floor
1:00 p.m. Session Chair: Sylvain Leduc, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Climate Change Risk
Presenter: Dana Kiku, University of Illinois
Discussant: Michael Bauer, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Carbon Risk
Presenter: Ryan Riordan, Queens University
Discussant: Harrison Hong, Columbia University
2:15 p.m. Break
2:45 p.m. Session Chair: Òscar Jordà, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
A Run on Oil: Climate Policy, Stranded Assets, and Asset Prices
Presenter: Michael Barnett, Arizona State University
Discussant: Robert Ready, University of Oregon
The Environmental Bias of Trade Policy
Presenter: Joseph S. Shapiro, University of California, Berkeley
Discussant: Katheryn Russ, University of California, Davis
4:00 p.m. Break
4:30 p.m. Session Chair: Glenn D. Rudebusch, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
The Macro Effects of Anticipating Climate Policy
Presenter: Stephie Fried, Arizona State University
Discussant: Tony Smith, Yale University
Climate Change: Macroeconomic Impact and Implications for Monetary Policy
Presenter: Sandra Batten, Bank of England
Discussant: Warwick McKibbin, Australian National University
5:45 p.m. Reception – Market Street Salon, 4th Floor
6:30 p.m. Dinner – Market Street Dining Room, 4th Floor
Introduction: Mary C. Daly, President, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Speaker: Frank Elderson, Member of the Governing Board, Netherlands Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank, DNB) and Chairman, Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS)

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Empirical Macro Workshop

Nice program.  Click below for slides.

16th Workshop on Methods and Applications for Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models

Authors Please upload your paper and slides here.
Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, Frank Schorfheide, Keith Sill, and Giorgio Primiceri, Organizers
October 4-5, 2019
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Friday, October 4
8:30 am
Continental Breakfast
9:00 am
Jeffrey R. Campbell, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Filippo Ferroni, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Jonas Fisher, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Leonardo Melosi, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
The Limits of Forward Guidance
Discussant:Kristoffer Nimark, Cornell University
10:00 am
Break
10:30 am
Andrew Foerster, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Andreas Hornstein, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Pierre-Daniel Sarte, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Mark W. Watson, Princeton University and NBER
Aggregate Implications of Changing Sectoral Trends
Discussant:André Kurmann, Drexel University
11:30 am
Christian Matthes, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Felipe Schwartzman, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
What Do Sectoral Dynamics Tell Us About the Origins of Business Cycles?
Discussant:Hikaru Saijo, University of California at Santa Cruz
12:30 pm
Lunch
2:00 pm
Keynote Presentation by Michael Woodford, Columbia University and NBER
3:00 pm
Break
3:30 pm
Preston Mui, University of California at Berkeley
Benjamin Schoefer, University of California at Berkeley
The Aggregate Labor Supply Curve at the Extensive Margin: A Reservation Wedge Approach
Discussant:Sergio C. Salgado Ibanez, University of Pennsylvania
4:30 pm
Alexander W. Richter, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Nathaniel A. Throckmorton, William & Mary
Oliver de Groot, University of St Andrews
Valuation Risk Revalued
Discussant:Winston Wei Dou, University of Pennsylvania
5:30 pm
Adjourn and Reception
Saturday, October 5
5:30 am
Continental Breakfast
9:00 am
Gerald Carlino, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Thorsten Drautzburg, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Robert P. Inman, University of Pennsylvania and NBER
Nicholas Zarra, New York University
Partisan Politics in Fiscal Unions: Evidence from U.S. States
Discussant:Karel Mertens, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
10:00 am
Break
10:30 am
Bertille Antoine, Simon Fraser University
Lynda Khalaf, Carleton University
Maral Kichian, University of Ottawa
Zhenjiang Lin, The University of Nottingham Ningbo China
Simulation Based Matching Inference with Applications to DSGE Models
Discussant:Simon Freyaldenhoven, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
11:30 am
Sophocles Mavroeidis, University of Oxford
Testing for Multiplicity of Equilibria in a Low Interest Rate Environment
Discussant:Mikkel Plagborg-Møller, Princeton University
12:30 pm
Adjourn and Lunch

Monday, September 2, 2019

Hello Again, and More

Sorry my friends, both for being AWOL and for not responding to your kind inquiries in that regard. I took some time off to start some new things in climate econometrics, and simultaneously to introspect. Glad to say I'm back for the duration.

Check out the papers from the fourth annual climate econometrics meeting, which just ended, here. More than fifty papers in two days! Is it selfless generosity or unbridled cruelty? Perhaps a little of both. But seriously, something's happening here.