Public Economics Program meeting.

• Position: Program and Working Group Meetings

The NBER's Program on Public Economics met in Cambridge on April 3 and 4. NBER Research Associates Jeffrey R. Brown and Scott Weisbenner, both of the University of Illinois, organized the meeting. These papers were discussed:

Liran Einav, Stanford University and NBER; Amy Finkelstein, MIT and NBER; and Paul Schrimpf, MIT, "The Welfare Cost of Asymmetric Information: Evidence from the U.K. Annuity Market" (NBER Working Paper No. 13228)

Discussant: Dan Silverman, University of Michigan and NBER

Ran Abramitzky, Stanford University, "The Limits of Equality: Insights from the Israeli Kibbutz"

Discussant: Emmanuel Saez, University of California, Berkeley and NBER

Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley and NBER, and Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Klara Sabirianova Peter, Georgia State University, "Myth and Reality of Flat Tax Reform: Micro Estimates of Tax Evasion Response and Welfare Effects in Russia" (NBER Working Paper No. 13719)

Discussant: Joel B. Slemrod, University of Michigan and NBER

Mark Duggan, University of Maryland and NBER, and Fiona Scott Morton, Yale School of Management and NBER, "The Effects of Medicare Part D on Pharmaceutical Prices and Utilization" (NBER Working Paper No. 13917)

Discussant: Jonathan Gruber, MIT and NBER

Peter A. Diamond, MIT and NBER. and James Banks, University College London, "The Base for Direct Taxation"

Discussant: Alan J. Auerbach, University of California, Berkeley and NBER

Daniel Bergstresser, Harvard University, and Jeffrey Pontiff, Boston College, "Investment Taxation and Portfolio Performance"

Discussant: William Gentry, Williams College

Bruce D. Meyer, University of Chicago and NBER, and James X. Sullivan, University of Notre Dame, "Three Decades of Consumption and Income Poverty"

Discussant: Kathleen M. McGarry, Dartmouth College and NBER

Much of the extensive empirical literature on insurance markets has focused on whether adverse selection can be detected. Once detected, however, there has been little attempt to quantify its importance. Einav and his co-authors start by showing theoretically that the efficiency cost of adverse selection cannot be inferred from reduced-form evidence of how "adversely selected" an insurance market appears to be. Instead, an explicit model of insurance contract choice is required. The authors develop and estimate such a model in the context of the U.K. annuity market. The model allows for private information about risk type (mortality) as well as...