Firms, Technology, and Economic Implications
Organized by Yueran Ma
Supported by the National Science Foundation
September 24-25, 2026
NBER, 1050 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA
Thursday, September 24
2:00 pm

The Effects of U.S. Public R&D on Global Growth

Gustavo De Souza, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Andrew J. Fieldhouse, Texas A&M University
Karel Mertens, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Ishan B. Nath, Harvard University and NBER
Valerie A. Ramey, Stanford University and NBER

Discussant:
Matthias Mertens, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3:00 pm
Break
3:15 pm

New Products

Abhiroop Mukherjee, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
Bruno Pellegrino, Columbia University and NBER
Alminas Zaldokas, National University of Singapore
Yiman Ren, University of Michigan
Tomas Thornquist, Shell Street Labs

Discussant:
Joel M. David, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
4:15 pm
Break
4:30 pm

Investing in Human Capital Incubation

Yufeng Wu, The Ohio State University
Miao Ben Zhang, University of Southern California
Bryan Seegmiller, Northwestern University
Seung Hyeong Lee, Northwestern University

Discussant:
Barney Hartman-Glaser, University of California, Los Angeles
5:30 pm
Adjourn
Friday, September 25
8:00 am
Continental Breakfast
8:30 am

Ideas and Firm Dynamics When It Takes Two to Tango

Seula Kim, The Pennsylvania State University
Jane Olmstead-Rumsey, London School of Economics
Honghao Wang, Northwestern University

Discussant:
Sina T. Ates, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
9:30 am
Break
9:45 am

The Value of Organizational Learning Technologies

Martin Beraja, University of California, Berkeley and NBER
Eduard Talamas, IESE Business School

Discussant:
Venky Venkateswaran, New York University and NBER
10:45 am
Break
11:00 am

Firms as Foragers

Lukas Freund, Boston College
Vasco M. Carvalho, University of Cambridge

Discussant:
Tommaso Porzio, Columbia University and NBER
12:00 pm
Lunch
12:30 pm

Panel Discussion
Josh Lerner, Harvard University
Dimitris Papanikolaou, Northwestern University
Gordon M. Phillips, Dartmouth College

Session on Artificial Intelligence
2:15 pm

Canaries in the Gold Mine: Early Productivity Gains from Artificial Intelligence Creating Organization Capital

Tania Babina, University of Maryland, College Park and NBER
Alex X. He, University of Maryland, College Park
Renhao Jiang, University of Maryland, College Park

Discussant:
Jose Maria Barrero, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)
3:00 pm

Writing Code vs. Shipping Code: Productivity Effects Across Generations of AI Coding Tools

Mert Demirer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
Leon Musolff, University of Pennsylvania and NBER
Liyuan Yang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Discussant:
Gregor Schubert, University of California, Los Angeles
3:45pm
Adjourn