SI 2026 Macroeconomics and Productivity
Organized by Susanto Basu, Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun, and Chad Syverson
July 21, 2026
Royal Sonesta Hotel, 40 Edwin H. Land Blvd., Cambridge, MA
Tuesday, July 21
8:30 am
Coffee and Pastries

Morning Session Joint with Conference on Research in Income and Wealth
9:00 am

Ray of Hope? China and the Rise of Solar Energy

John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and NBER
Robin Burgess, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Ignacio Banares-Sanchez, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Pol Simpson, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Yifan Wang, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Dávid László, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Discussant:
TBA
9:40 am

Safety in Unemployment and Risky Experimentation of Young Firms

Renato Faccini, Danmarks Nationalbank
Seho Kim, Danmarks Nationalbank
Javier Miranda, Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Discussant:
TBA
10:20 am
Break
10:40 am

Still Waters, Rapid Currents: Early Labor Market Transformation under Generative AI

Anders Humlum, The University of Chicago and NBER
Emilie Vestergaard, University of Copenhagen

Discussant:
TBA
11:20 am

The Skill Premium in Times of Rapid Technological Change

Tarek Alexander Hassan, Boston University and NBER
Aakash Kalyani, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Pascual Restrepo, Yale University and NBER

Discussant:
TBA
12:00 pm
Lunch
1:00 pm

Propagation of Shocks in Networks: Identification and Applications

Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Harvard University and NBER
Xavier Gabaix, Harvard University and NBER
Davide Viviano, Harvard University
1:40 pm

Spreading Out Across Expanding Idea Space

Ina Ganguli, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and NBER
Jeffrey Lin, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Vitaly Meursault, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Nicholas F. Reynolds, University of Essex

Discussant:
TBA
2:20 pm
Break
2:40 pm

Causes and Consequences of Labor Utilization: Evidence from Ugandan Firms

Vittorio Bassi, University of Southern California and NBER
Imran Rasul, University College London
Anna O. Veroux, Institute for Fiscal Studies: IFS
Anna Vitali, New York University
3:20 pm

Concentrating on Customers: A New Measure of Size-Based Market Power

Alex Blumenfeld, University of California, Berkeley
Christina Patterson, The University of Chicago and NBER
Joseph S. Vavra, The University of Chicago and NBER
4:00 pm
Adjourn