X Summer School on Economics and Philosophy (2007)

Using Economic Models to Make Policy Recommendations

A summer school organized by the University of the Basque Country and the Urrutia Elejalde Foundation.
San Sebastián, July 2-4 (2007)

Directors: Javier Díaz-Giménez, Ramon Marimon & José Víctor Ríos-Rull

Coordinators: Alfonso Dubois (UPV/EHU) & David Teira (UNED)

Aims and Scope | Speakers | Registration

Group Picture

Final Program

Papers

1. Aims and scope:

In a general way, the problem of macroeconomics —really, of all applied economics— is to go from non-experimental observations of the past behavior of the economy to inferences about the future behavior of the economy under alternative assumptions about the way policy is conducted. In terms of models, then, we want a model that fits historical data and that can be simulated to give reliable estimates of the effects of various policies on future behavior. But what data? And what do we mean by fit? And when can we expect that particular simulations will be reliable?” Robert E. Lucas, Models of Business Cycles (1987).

The Urrutia Elejalde Foundation wants to celebrate its tenth anniversary taking up a methodological issue that has been dormant for way too long. A part of the profession has embraced the methodology described in the quotation above and routinely uses explicit economic models to make quantitative statements about the economy and to evaluate the welfare consequences of economic policies. Yet the hard methodological questions that Robert E. Lucas asks in the last lines of the quotation have remained conspicuously unanswered in the twenty odd years that have elapsed since they were formulated.

The purpose of the X Summer School is to take up this methodological challenge and to provide some answers to these and to other related questions. We would like to continue the conversation started ten years ago in the Winter 1996 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives where Kydland and Prescott (1996), Sims (1996) and Hansen and Heckman (1996) discussed the design and uses of macroeconomic models. A large body of literature has been published since then and we would like to take a look at it from some distance. Which articles come closest to the best standards? How have those standards evolved? The contributions need not take the form of completed papers. More informal material such as the one required to give a forty minute lecture that will stimulate an ensuing discussion is also acceptable.

2. Papers will be presented by:

F. Kydland (U. of California at Santa Barbara), P. Jung (U. of Amsterdam) and K. Kuester (European Central Bank), C. Winter (European U. Institute), S. Schmitt- Grohe (Duke U.) and M. Uribe (Duke U.), M. Darracq-Paries (European Central Bank) and S. Moyen (U. d’Evry Val d’Essonne), T. Cooley (New York U.), C. Meghir (U. College of London), L. Christiano (Northwestern U.), R. Motto (European Central Bank) and M. Rostagno (European Central Bank), P. Rabanal (La Caixa), J.C. Conesa (U. Autonoma de Barcelona), S. Kitao (New York U.), and D. Krueger (Goethe U.), J. Díaz-Giménez (U. Carlos III de Madrid) and J. Díaz- Saavedra (U. de Granada), J.V. Ríos-Rull (U. of Pennsylvania), C. Sims (Princeton University), M. del Negro (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta) and F. Schorfheide (U. of Pennsylvania), J. Fernández-Villaverde (U. of Pennsylvania) and J.F. Rubio-Ramírez (Duke U.)

 

3. Registration: The organization offers a number of grants to cover registration fees and/or accommodation expenses. Applications should include a short C.V. and, in the case of graduate students, a letter of recommendation by at least one professor. Notice that it is not necessary to present a paper in order to apply for a grant.

Registration before June 3!

For more information, visit: http://www.sc.ehu.es/scrwwwsu/programas/cic41c.html