Activities - Conferences

Heterogeneous Agents in Macroeconomics

July 2-3, 1999

This conference was jointly organized by CREI and The Bradley Policy Research Center, Rochester University. The program was prepared by professors Albert Marcet (UPF, Barcelona), Vicenzo Quadrini (Duke U.) and Thomas Cooley (Rochester U.). Financial support was obtained from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Cultura and from the Bradley Policy Research Center.

The papers presented at the conference focused on the effect of heterogeneity in macroeconomic issues, including the behavior of heterogeneous firms or consumers, the effect on investment, savings, efficiency of fiscal policy, redistribution, etc. Some papers analyzed the behavior of dynamic models with a large number of agents (often resorting to numerical simulations of the model), others addressed these issues from a more empirical point of view.

Additional information

Program

Program

Friday, July 2 – Morning session

9:30-10:45 Boyan Jovanovic (New York University)
"The IT Revolution and the Stock Market"

Discussant: Thomas Cooley (University of Rochester)

11:00-12:15 Wouter den Haan (University of California, San Diego)
"Liquidity Flows and Fragility of Business Enterprises", (joint with Joel Watson and Gary Ramey)

Discussant: Enrique Mendoza (Duke University)

12:30-13:45 Hugo Hopenhayn (University of Rochester)
"Optimal lending contracts: moral hazard or imperfect enforcement?"

Discussant: Vincenzo Quadrini (Duke University)

Friday, July 2 – Afternoon session

16:30-17:45 Alvaro Sandroni (Northwestern University)
"Financial Institutions and the Incentive to Gather Information", (joint with Sandeep Balinga)

Discussant: José Vicente Rodríguez Mora (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

18:15-19:30 Andres Erosa (University of Western Ontario)
"Inflation, Heterogeneity and Costly Credit; How Regressive is the Inflation Tax? (joint with Gustavo Ventura)

Discussant: John Knowles (University of Pennsylvania)

Saturday, July 3 – Morning session

9:30-10:45 Nezih Guner (University of Rochester)
"Marriage, Fertility and the Distribution of Income", (joint with Jeremy Greenwood and John Knowles)

Discussant: Kjetil Storesletten (Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University)

11:00-12:15 Roland Bénabou (New York University)
"Macroeconomics and Public Finance with Heterogeneous Agents: What Levels of Redistribution Maximize Income and Efficiency?"

Discussant: Isabel Correia (Banco de Portugal)

12:30-13:45 Jonathan Heathcote (Stockholm School of Economics)
"Fiscal Policy with Heterogeneous Agents and Incomplete Markets"

Discussant: Morten Ravn (University Pompeu Fabra)

Saturday, July 3 – Afternoon session

16:30-17:45 Jeffrey Campbell (University of Rochester)
"Organization Flexibility and Employment Dynamics at Young and Old Plants", (joint with Jonas Fisher)

Discussant: James Costain (Pompeu Fabra University)

18:15-19:30 Sergei and Lilia Maliar (Pompeu Fabra University)
"Aggregation in Heterogeneous Agent Models and Real Business Cycles"

Discussant: Chris Telmer (Cornegie-Mellon University)

OTHER PARTICIPANTS

Thomas Cooley

(University of Rochester)