The SEA meetings are just around the corner. I just sent this email:
AERE/SEA session participants,
By now you have probably received one or more emails from the SEA explaining your duties. I apologize that I have not made this clear earlier but the AERE sessions at the SEA meetings run without discussants. We usually have a pretty good discussion in the Q&A session after each paper. Over the years I've only received positive feedback from paper presenters and audience members. Authors may wish to circulate their papers ahead of time but even this is not required.
Several years ago, at some point during the AERE/SEA cocktail hour, I had a discussion with several leading* economists where we were complaining about the practice of paper discussants at regional economics conferences. Here are the key points:
- When paper discussants are well-matched with a paper and are motivated they give great feedback. This is wonderful for the presenter and the audience.
- Paper discussants are often ill-matched to the paper, unmotivated or receive the paper with insufficient time to prepare (I've received a paper right before a session and the presenter "looked forward to my comments").
- When ill-matched they run through the regression user's handbook, suggesting tests for multicollinearity and heteroskedasticity. Sometimes the discussant mutters gibberish.
- Being assigned as a discussant is considered a burden. The same people would much rather attend a session and spontaneously ask a question.
- Audience members are often frustrated because they don't have time for Q&A.
So, we dropped discussants at the AERE sessions several years ago. The experiment was successful in that crowd-sourcing the discussant time worked well. Of course, not having discussants requires attendance at sessions by an engaged audience. Lack of attendance is not a problem at the AERE sessions where 15-20 participants is the norm. Engagement is not a problem either.
*Note: I'm using the term "leading" loosely.
