ASSA is like Coachella and Glastonbury Festival of Economics - setting trends, presenting what's hot in the field, full of celebrities and rock stars (economic, in this case), sometimes intimidating and coming across almost as too big to handle. A place to see and to be seen. From the vast number of sessions, we were particularly eager to attend Mathias Doepke presentantion on trends in labor supply. As we expected, his recent research paper draws from family economics insights and tries to explain with quantitative model why in recent decades the correlation between U.S. men's wages and hours worked has reversed. Namely, why today men with the highest wages work the longest hours. The authors argue that for changing dynamics of labor supply, the joint household decision making is to blame. 

Moreover, we were able to attend (again) inspiring presentation by Annamaria Lusardi. The queen of financial literacy presented her newest findings from the OECD PISA results. While working on pension system research, we often come across the hypothesis that improving financial literacy is one of the solutions to boost low savings rate among pension systems participants. Annamaria Lusardi shows what factors influence financial knowledge,  in particular focusing on four factors: the role of personal characteristics, the role of parents, the role of schools, and the role of teachers. Great recommendations for policymakers and developing policies in schools.