Productivity program meeting.

• Position: National Bureau of Economic Research conference

NBER Research Associates John C. Haltiwanger, University of Maryland; Ariel Pakes, Yale University; and Mark J. Roberts, Pennsylvania State University, organized the most recent meeting of the NBER's Program on Productivity. The agenda for the December 12 gathering was:

Michael Greenstone, Princeton University, "The Marginal Effects of Environmental Regulations on the Manufacturing Sector: Evidence from the 1970 and 1977 Clean Air Amendments"

Discussant: Christopher Timmins, Yale University

Randy Becker, Brown University, and J. Vernon Henderson, NBER and Brown University, "Effects of Air Quality Regulations on Polluting industries" (NBER Working Paper No. 6160)

Discussant: Robert Schwab, University of Maryland

Sofronis Clerides, Yale University; Saul Lach, NBER and Hebrew University; and James Tybout, Georgetown University, "Is Learning-by-Exporting Important? Microdynamic Evidence from Colombia, Mexico, and Morocco"

Discussants: Andrew Bernard, NBER and Yale University, and Jensen, Carnegie-Mellon University

Lanier Benkard, Yale University, "Learning and Forgetting: the Dynamics of Aircraft Production"

Discussant: Dennis Epple, Carnegie-Mellon University

Brent Boning, Carnegie-Mellon University: Casey Ichniowski, NBER and Columbia University; and Kathryn Shaw, NBER and Carnegie-Mellon University, "Incentive Pay for Production Workers: An Empirical Analysis"

Discussant: George Baker, Harvard University

Sandra E. Black, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Lisa M. Lynch, NBEr and Tufts University, "The Impact of Workplace Practices and Information Technology on Productivity"

Discussant: Steven Olley, NBER and Georgetown University.

Greenstone presents new evidence on the impact of federal environmental laws on the manufacturing sector by using pollution categories established by the EPA after the passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970. Specifically, the EPA designated high or low regulation status for four pollutants to each county, depending upon whether the national air quality standards were met there. Controlling for a wide set of factors, including transitory shocks to polluting industries and plant characteristics, Greenstone finds that a county's pollutant-specific high-regulation designation significantly affected the growth of employment, the rate of net investment, and the growth of shipments of polluting plants relative to non-polluting ones. Moreover, the effects differed across the four regulations and across plants...