Public Economics Program meeting.

• Position: Program and Working Group Meetings

The NBER's Program on Public Economics (PE) met at Stanford University on April 7 and 8, 2011. The PE Program's CoDirector Amy Finkelstein of MIT, and NBER Research Associate Julie Berry Cullen of University of California, San Diego, organized this meeting. The following papers were discussed:

* Johannes Schmieder, Boston University; Till M. von Wachter, Columbia University and NBER; and Stefan Bender, Institut fur Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung, "The Effects of Extended Unemployment Insurance over the Business Cycle: Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Estimates over Twenty Years"

* Kory Kroft, Yale University, and Matthew J. Notowidigdo, MIT, "Should Unemployment Insurance Vary With the Unemployment Rate? Theory and Evidence"

* Camille Landais, Stanford University; Pascal Michaillat, London School of Economics; and Emmanuel Saez, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, "Optimal Unemployment Insurance over the Business Cycle" (NBER Working Paper No. 16526)

* Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, "The Effects of Marginal Tax Rates: Evidence from the Interwar Era"

* Matias Busso, Inter-American Development Bank; Jesse Gregory, University of Michigan; and Patrick M. Kline, University of California at Berkeley and NBER, "Assessing the...