Economics and Politics of Mega-Firms

Chad Syverson and John Van Reenen, Organizers

February 19, 2021

on Zoom.us

Conference Code of Conduct

Friday, February 19
10:55 am
Welcoming remarks
11:00 am
Ezra Oberfield, Princeton University and NBER
Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, University of Chicago and NBER
Pierre-Daniel Sarte, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Nicholas Trachter, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Plants in Space
11:30 am
Bruno Pellegrino, Columbia University

Product Differentiation and Oligopoly: A Network Approach
12:00 pm
Marianne Bertrand, University of Chicago and NBER
Matilde Bombardini, University of California, Berkeley and NBER
Raymond Fisman, Boston University and NBER
Francesco Trebbi, University of California, Berkeley and NBER
Eyub Yegen, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Investing in Influence: Investors, Portfolio Firms, and Political Giving
12:30 pm
Diana Van Patten, Yale University and NBER
Esteban Mendez-Chacon, Central Bank of Costa Rica

Multinationals, Monopsony and Local Development: Evidence from the United Fruit Company
1:00 pm
Break
1:30 pm
Kilian Huber, University of Chicago and NBER

Are Bigger Banks Better? Firm-Level Evidence from Germany
2:00 pm
Antonio Falato, Federal Reserve Board
Hyunseob Kim, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Till M. von Wachter, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER

Shareholder Power and the Decline of Labor
2:30 pm
Philippe Aghion, London School of Economics
Antonin Bergeaud, HEC Paris
Timo Boppart, IIES, Stockholm University
Peter J. Klenow, Stanford University and NBER
Huiyu Li, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

A Theory of Falling Growth and Rising Rents (slides)
3:00 pm
David Baqaee, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER
Emmanuel Farhi, Harvard University

The Darwinian Returns to Scale
3:30 pm
Closing remarks and adjourn