Economic Fluctuations and Growth.

The fall research meeting of the NBER's Program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth took place in Chicago on October 27. Steven J. Davis, NBER and University of Chicago, and Peter J. Klenow, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, organized the program and chose the following papers for discussion:

George-Marios Angeletos, Jeremy Tobacman, and Stephen Weinberg, Harvard University; David I. Laibson, NBER and Harvard University; and Andrea Repetto, University of Chile, "The Hyperbolic Buffer Stock Model: Calibration, Simulation, and Empirical Evaluation"

Discussants: Jonathan A. Parker, Princeton University, and David E. Altig, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Francesco Caselli, NBER and Harvard University, and Wilbur J. Colemann II, Duke University, "The World Technology Frontier" (NBER Working Paper No. 7904)

Discussants: Per Krusell, University of Rochester, and Jaume Ventura, NBER and MIT

K. Daron Acemoglu, NBER and MIT; Simon Johnson, MIT; and James A. Robinson, University of California, Berkeley, "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation" (NBER Working Paper No. 7771)

Discussants: Kenneth K. Sokoloff, NBER and University of California, Los Angeles, and Robert E. Hall, NBER and Stanford University

Jeffrey R. Campbell, NBER and University of Chicago, and Jonas D. M. Fisher, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, "Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Employment Dynamics" (NBER Working Paper No. 7936) Discussants: John C. Haltiwanger, NBER and University of Maryland, and Richard Rogerson, NBER and University of Pennsylvania

Andrew G. Atkeson and Patrick J. Kehoe, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, "The Transition to a New Economy"

Discussants: Peter Howitt, Brown University, and Robert J. Gordon, NBER and Northwestern University

Judith A. Chevalier and Anil K Kashyap, NBER and University of Chicago, and Peter E. Rossi, University of Chicago, "Why Don't Prices Rise During Periods of Peak Demand? Evidence from Scanner Data" (NBER Working Paper No. 7981)

Discussants: Julio J. Rotemberg, NBER and Harvard University, and Valerie A. Ramey, NBER and University of California, San Diego

Laboratory and field studies of time preference find that discount rates are much greater in the short run than in the long run. Hyperbolic discount functions capture this property. In their paper, Angeletos, Tobacman, Weinberg, Laibson, and Repetto present simulations of the savings and asset allocation choices of households with hyperbolic...