I will be attending the Annual Meeting of the American Economics Association in Denver this weekend and, if all goes according to plan, live-blogging it here (as well as fishing for ideas for future writing, radio, etc).
The program of panels and events is astonishingly large and varied, from a panel on “The Economics of the Organic Food System” to “Incentive Compensation” to “What Economics Needs: Past and Future.”
There are far, far, far more discussions than any one person could attend — in fact, you’d need a crew of about 60 people to take in all the events, given that so many happen simultaneously.
So I am asking for your help: what and who are the must-sees at this year’s AEA? Please leave your comments below. Feel free to promote your own paper or panel, or that of your colleague or co-author or even spouse (you can of course be anonymous in the comments section). And if you’re in attendance and see me wandering about, please come up and say hello.
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. You can also watch it on 
Got to see the humor session
City Size and Land Development
In order for people to build, and live in smaller houses, we need to change zoning and lot size restrictions.
This is weighted toward the first day since I made it through only about 75% of the entries, but regardless the first day seemed to have the highest density of interesting topics, in my opinion.
Education in Developing Countries: Results from Randomized Control Trials in China (O1)
Health Insurance and Public Policy (I1)
Motor Vehicle Fuel (Q5)
The Costs and Benefits of Pollution Control (Q5)
Choice Theory (D0)
Insights into Obesity from a Behavioral Economics Perspective (I1)
Causal Effects of Vietnam-Era Military Service on Health and Welfare (I1)
Economic Underpinnings of Recycling and Waste Disposal Policies (Q5) (!!!!)
Economics of Immigration (J2)
Optimal Fiscal Policy (H2)
Self-Control, Self-Confidence, and Self-Deception (D3)
Marriage and Divorce: Perspectives from Four Countries (J1)
Definitely Janet Currie’s address on Friday.
The Nostradamus Effect:
In Future Armageddon Event Forecasting (Black Swan Phenomena), does accuracy correspond to Beard Length of the economist?
- The inequality debate w/ Rajan and Ed Glaeser
- The humor session, if only for Yoram Bauman to degrade Greg Mankiw
- Currie’s address on Inequality from birth
- Eichengreen’s work on the panel of the future of trade
- Grand Challenges for Social Science research featuring none other than Esther Duflo and former flame Emmanuel Saez!
I’ve got to give a self-promotional second on the humor session point.
Go see the part with all of the economists that actually foresaw the bank failures of 2008. Oh yeah all three of them. The rest all ought to resign and go do something useful. They are like a doctor that missed a fifteen pound tumor or a carpenter that built a house upside down. It is a terrible thing that public funds are spent for a so called profession that so totally missed the boat. They should all apologize, return their salaries and go do something useful.